Birds of prey

[Bohns]

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Hello everyone

For once, I am present when the fields below my land are mowed. I was treated to a festival of birds of prey, buzzards and black kites taking advantage of easy prey in the cut grass.

I had a lot of waste, but I took some of my best photos of these birds that have always fascinated me. 

SL2 + "bazooka" 150-600. 
The best results in flight were obtained with the configuration {electronic shutter + stabilization ON + priority to bright areas + AFS (paradoxically) + face recognition + 6 fps burst + maximum aperture + speed > 1/1600s + compensation +1 to + 1 2/3}. The "Pursuit AF" mode does not work well for me and the waste rate is > 70% in AFC.

1) Distant circles (1 buzzard and 2 kites):

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2) Same:

3) they are getting closer (black kite):

To be continued...

Edited June 13, 2024 by Bohns

[Bohns]

4) Emergency braking (black kite):

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5) Target hooked! (black kite):

6) These birds are magnificent gliders (black kite):

To be continued...

[Bohns]

7) Black kite gliding :

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(a little narrow and heavily cropped to re-balance as best as possible, but the light on the head is superb)

8 ) Rapid level flight (black kite):

9) Same:

 

To be continued...

[Bohns]

10) Buzzard in quasi “high key”:

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11) Same:

12) Grassroots flight (black kite):

This is the configuration that caused me the most problems and waste; the AF often tended to hang on the foliage at the bottom...

To be finished next 😅

Edited June 13, 2024 by Bohns

[Bohns]

13) Fight between 2 kites:

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14) Full! (buzzard):

Who said contrast AF wasn't suitable for this kind of fast target?  
Glad I am. There remains a field to mow; I hope I will be there.

Regards,

Stef.

[war]

Nicely done, and very good as sets.  I have often tried to capture raptors in flight with only minimum success. Remember, with digital images, you can delete the failures and no one will ever know how many it took to get the the good one.

Regards. Wally

[Bohns]

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18 hours ago, war said:

Remember, with digital images, you can delete the failures and no one will ever know how many it took to get the the good one.

😁😉

Thank you very much Wally.

I shall admit I had about 40% waste in average for flights against the sky, and >70% for grassroots flights with trees behind the bird, especially when combining AFC with « pursuit AF » mode. The failure rate decreased visibly when combining AFS and « face detection AF » but was still high. Speed was faster than 1/2000s despite higher ISO.
These birds (kites, buzzards, eagles, raptors, hornets, etc.) are very rapid and change direction fast. They can be just above you at low altitude and then glide very far and high in a finger snap, plus the difficulty of keeping them in the viewfinder at 600 mm 😅

I will try to adapt my astronomical red-point finder not to keep the eye in the finder, do a better job in tracking, and by then, decrease the wastes 😉

Thanks a lot for « likers » as well.

Regards,

Stef.

Edited June 16, 2024 by Bohns