An October 5, 2015, shot of a Northern Harrier hen taking off from the ground at the Ridgefield NWR. I got only this one frame of the bird with its wings up and I cut off the wing tips. Without another frame showing the wing tips to borrow from, I decided to just leave it. I hoped the pose and the light made up for the wingtip ooops on my part. 🙂
Canon 7D Mark II, 1/1250, f4, ISO 640, 500mm, 6:23 p.m.
An October 5, 2015, shot of a Northern Harrier hen taking off from the ground at the Ridgefield NWR. I got only this one frame of the bird with its wings up and I cut off the wing tips. Without another frame showing the wing tips to borrow from, I decided to just leave it. I hoped the pose and the light made up for the wingtip ooops on my part. 🙂
Canon 7D Mark II, 1/1250, f4, ISO 640, 500mm, 6:23 p.m.
A fantastic bird in great light – one of those nearly, nearly shots. I’ve had a good look at it and I like it. BUT, if I was you Dennis, I would be very frustrated not to have been able to capture the whole shot. I’ve just had a similar experience with Red Deer. I was armed with my 300mm f/2.8 and 1.4x and 2x TC’s. I thought I would be able to capture some long distance head shots at 6000mm as well as some closer ‘habitat’ shots as I call them at 420mm or 300mm. However, the deer were a lot closer than I anticipated and consequently I had lots of frustrating moments when I was missing action, or clipping off antlers and feet all because I was too close and couldn’t back off. That’s the trouble with wildlife photography unless you’re using a zoom. My wife was using her 80-400mm and captured everything! Wildlife photography is unpredictable and frustrating at times, but that’s why we love it. All the best Dennis, and keep up the good work.
Thanks, Tony! Actually in this case, the cutting off of the wingtips had nothing to do with the fact that I was using a prime lens. I simply wasn’t well prepared for the bird’s lift off and had the lens pointed too low–completely my error. I had plenty of room had I just been a little more cognizant of the situation. It was the end of the day…I was tired…you know the excuses! 🙂 Missing action because I can’t zoom happens so rarely that I would never go back to a zoom lens unless size and weight became a consideration. Thanks for your comment!