Upon my arrival at Southbourne cliffs, Bournemouth, I immediately see a kestrel, stationary on the wind, not too far from me. I can't believe my luck. Here am I, equipped with a super-telephoto lens, with the right exposure compensation already dialed-in to the camera; continuous shooting mode already engaged - along with the correct focusing mode (that, too, continuous), and a bird I have been trying to get successful images of for some years is putting on a show. All I have to do is frame and fire the shutter...
And then it's gone! Before I can get one shot off it has disappeared. I scour the sky to see which direction it went, but I have lost it. That is, until I look directly above my head, where she hovers about ten feet above me. I fire off several frames, but know they are nothing special. Then the light changes for just a few moments and the raptor drops lower at the same time, into a pool of sunlight. I can't believe my luck (again). I get just two frames before both sunlight and bird move on, but I have the feeling I have caught something good. I attempt to check sharpness on the screen on my camera, but these things are notoriously poor for assessing that sort of thing, especially in bright light. I grin and bear it, hoping for the best.
It's not until I open the files on my computer that I can finally breathe easily, knowing I have got the shot. She did stay in the area for a while longer; I even witnessed her make a catch at close quarters, but the lighting and angles were not so good. I took more shots, but the results were disappointing. All in all, a good afternoon's shooting.
300mm f/4 AF-S Nikkor. 1/1600 second at f/5.6. + 0.33 EV compensation. ISO 400
© 2012
3 comments:
Great shot. Well done. :)
Thank you, Nic. Beautiful, isn't she? Often seen during the past few years, but not so easy to get a good shot of. I'm rather pleased with this one. :-)
Stunning shot - actually made me say "wow" out loud . Keep them coming !
Post a Comment