Critique Welcomed Take Off!

[Paul Lange]

We went to the Raptor Foundation, close to St Ives yesterday for something to do with the kids. I have a 70-300mm AF-S VR lens that gets an airing every now and again. This is not the sort of photography I am into (I won't be buying a 400mm F2.8 anytime soon. I do enjoy taking these sort of images as it's a challenge and I develop a few technical skills along the way. Took me a while of fumbling with camera settings until I was able to take something half decent.

I particularly like this one though, I thought it came out rather well.

 

[Pete Askew]

It did indeed Paul. Focus is spot on. What were your settings?

 

[Dan Cattermole]

Brilliant shot paul.
yeah, interested in the settings you used.

 

[Paul Lange]

Thank You guys.

There were so many and I fumbled about quite a bit but checking the Metadata:
Aperture Priority - 1/1600 @ 4.5 - Ramped up the ISO to 1100 in order get a fast shutter speed to blur the background more.
Focal Length 165mm (35mm equiv)
Center-weighted Metering
Continuous Spot Focusing although later I worked out that Multi Central Spot AF gave a higher success rate.

 

[Hamish Gill]

Nice Paul
It sure if you will have got any background blur from that fast a shutter speed
Were you panning?
With that lns if you set te vr to "normal" as that is the setting that allows panning shots ...
I'd aim or not much more than 1/250th to get panning blur ... The slower the better, but then you have to still find the balance between panning background blur and just blured
That said, do you remember Richard Slowman who used to post ... He had a lot of blur in his pans and they worked...
Just a case I making sure you are panning at the same speed as one element of the subject ...
When I have done panning shots in the past I have set the shutter to the focal length and found up to 200mm ive had a good hit rate ...

 

[Brian Moore]

I think its a remarkable shot, Paul. His plumage is on display for all its glory and the detail is sharp. (You can see the wee talons sticking out the back end, and he almost appears to be looking out the corner of his eye.) Did he take off from that post there?

Anyway, very nice indeed.

 

[Bryan Hunt]

Great shot Paul here is a similar shot i took last year with the settings i used

f/4.5
focal length 110 mm
Subject distance 5m
ISO 320
Exposure 1/3200
Continuous autofocus 3D tracking

 

[Paul Lange]

Nice shot Bryan.

Brian, he did take off from the post, I'd thought I leave i tin to tell a bit of the story.

Hamish, I tried panning but the birds only flew short distances and I often had less than a second from take off to landing. The sort distances often meant their altitude was often erratic too. I guess it is possible to pan but I was no good at it.

 

[Rob MacKillop]

Both great shots. Wow.

 

[Glen Roberts]

Couple of great in flight shots Paul and Bryan, certainly not easy to get the feathers as sharp as that in flight but I keep trying.

 

[Chris Dodkin]

Well worth the time and effort Paul - lovely sharp capture.