Hovering Male Kestrel

[Dennis_Plank]

This guy gave me lots of opportunities. I was a bit disappointed that this was the only series that really came out well and unfortunately, the nice clouds that were in the background for the others weren’t present at this angle. I’m posting 4 images in the sequence just for fun. These are cropped and they stand up to a bit closer crop, but I wanted to keep the feel that the bird was up in the sky.

I thought it was cool that there was still a fair amount of wing blur at this shutter speed.

Specific Feedback Requested

Anything.

Technical Details

Is this a composite: No
Sony a1, FE 200-600 + 1.4 TC @ 840 mm, f/9, 1/2000, iso 800, manual exposure. Processed in LR & PS CC. I didn’t crop all of these the same, but the first image is at 6276x4296 before exporting. The others are similar. Not much processing. A little brightening and some feather texture enhancement. Taken January 17th at 10:19 AM.

[David_Schoen]

Nice environmental and in-flight series of these Kestrels. Although they stay in one place when they are hovering, they never seem to be close enough to get superb detail. This is very difficult to do in these images all look pretty good.

[David_Bostock]

Excellent capture, Dennis. Love the action. I can’t imagine even trying to catch this small bird in flight with my rig. Nice.

[Keith_Bauer]

Cool series Dennis. The Kestral hovering is such a great thing to witness.

[terryb (Terry Brunholtz)]

Really fun to see, Dennis. Nice details and fun action shots.

[Diane_Miller]

So cool!! Wonderful rig to capture this opportunity and nice low-angle light!