Kestrel Male

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One of the many shots I got last year of a male kestrel who regularly hunts along the cliffs of Bournemouth

Stan

7D, 420mm, 1/1000, f 7.1, ISO 800


kestrel male by Neptuno.Photography, on Flickr
 
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Stunner(y)
 
Cheers Brash - I have a whole collection of these

Stan
 
Think the second one is the stronger image out of the 2, first one has a little halo thing going on (probably just due to the light) whereas the second one doesn't

Both great though and as you know - just getting into BiF I am discovering how tricky they really are

.DAVID.
 
i can,t for yhe life of me get that much detail of the breediding pair of kestrels i have ,how do you get such clear focus when in flight mine always in dark even thou i change the white balance the iso please help i,m in despair here,
regards mark.
 
Thanks for looking guys

first one has a little halo thing going on (probably just due to the light) whereas the second one doesn't
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its not a halo just the strong light hitting the feather edges

how do you get such clear focus when in flight mine always in dark even thou i change the white balance the iso please help i,m in despair here,
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Mark, the white balence will have very little effect and anyway its something you can easily change in post production, assuming you shoot raw - I tend to use either daylight or auto most of the time. The main thing to watch is the exposure. Shooting in Av mode against the sky will almost certainly result in an underexposed image unless you apply some positive exposure compensation. For these images i was dialling in somewhere between +1.33 and 1.66. An alternative way which will give you a similar result is to shoot manual and take your meter reading from a mid tone in similar light, grass is a good thing to use - you will then have a correct exposure whether the bird flies against a background of say the grass or the sky.

Having sorted out the exposure then you need a reasonable shutter speed of at least 1/1000 for birds in flight, (although with these shots the kestrel was almost static hovering so i could have got away with lower) and set the focus to AI servo or equivalent so the camera will continually focus as the bird moves across the sky

Hope that helps

Stan
 
A good capture but something looks a bit odd to my eye regarding the underside of the wings. Not sure if this is due to PP or not but it seems too bright imo and lacking any natural shadows, the other image posted is far better.
 
but something looks a bit odd to my eye regarding the underside of the wings. Not sure if this is due to PP or not but it seems too bright imo and lacking any natural shadows
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its just the effect of the strong light against the pose

Stan
 
stanm said:
its just the effect of the strong light against the pose

Stan
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Sorry Stan but I beg to differ. There is no way you can have that level of brightness showing across the underside of the subject unless it was being lit from underneath, it is just too uniform imho.
 
There is no way you can have that level of brightness showing across the underside of the subject unless it was being lit from underneath, it is just too uniform imho
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have a look at this Rich - its the original raw straight out of the camera with no processing whatever apart from resize and saved as jpeg to post

Stan

4700-kestrelunedited.jpg
 
Hi great shots, thanks for that bit of info it is certainly something I want to get into as making a living from sport photography it's good to try something totally removed. Thanks
 
stanm said:
have a look at this Rich - its the original raw straight out of the camera with no processing whatever apart from resize and saved as jpeg to post

Stan

4700-kestrelunedited.jpg
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Cheers Stan for getting back. I notice with that image you used an exposure bias value of +5/3, I am not too sure if you also used highlight recovery with the conversion or had it set in camera as it shows a value of 3, personaly I have it turned off in camera as do many others. It would be interesting to see the RAW file, there are actually three hot spots on the subject. On top the head,another between the left of the head and the left wing and the last one just above the feet. That indicates to me that the sun was roughly somewhere shining down from the top left, which would in theory leave slightly more shadow on the underside. That now leads me to believe that the image was perhaps a little bit more overexposed more than anything else :shrug: The other shot you posted looks far more natural, and like I say Stan I aint knocking the capture itself, but I feel that a discussion on this forum is always healthy (y)
 
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Hi Rich

I cant remember exactly what i did in the conversion now as it was done six months ago but the value of 3 you mention is a mistake as i must have knocked the slider after i set back to camera raw defaults. PM me you e mail and i will let you have the raw to look at

BTW the second shot, although of the same kestrel was taken 3 months earlier in March

Stan
 
Both great pictures and thanks for info re trying to take hif pictures. must keep my eyes more open next time I walk along the clift tops not noticed the kestrels before.
 
Doh!!
 
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must keep my eyes more open next time I walk along the clift tops not noticed the kestrels before.
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this particular bird hunts along the cliffs between Boscombe and Southbourne. I spent a lot of time last year shooting a couple of pairs of stonechats on the cliffs at the Southbourne end and was lucky that on most visits as well as getting a load of shots of the stonechats, the kestrel turned up as well. This is the only place i have seen one on such a regular basis

Stan
 
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