Fishhawk Feasting

[hotspur]

just got back from Marcoola beach,the weather was gorgreous,went for

swimming,on the way back to the appartment,saw this Osprey{Pandion

haliaetus} he had just caught a black travelly {siganidae sp} and was

happy feasting away,carefully and quitely moved in as close as i could

to take these snaps,i was so busy trying to take pics{in manual} that it

shocked me that i got close enough to hear the fish slapping against

the tree branch,it was nice to put the camera down and just observe.

anyone who has done raptor photograpy will tell you how hard it is to

get in close,i had to take my chances with photos even though the

sun wasnt in the best position.

was happy to get these

regards Chris

[StephenM]

Nicely captured Chris!

I've seen Ospreys at fairly close range before, but never feeding like this.

Cheers,
Stephen

[Dennis]

Hi Chris

Those are some spectacular photos of this powerful creature having lunch! The scene is a very, very challenging one – a dark object against a bright sky giving a brightness range far greater than the camera can record in a single shot. In the ideal world, the bird would have landed on a branch nicely front lit by the Sun!

I’ve never succeeded in taking photos under these back-lit conditions, even when I manually set the exposure to obtain suitably exposed detail in the feathers. This is usually achieved at the expense of a slower shutter speed, less depth of field and/or more noise at higher ISO. The sky would then be overly bright.

Another technique would be to use a flash to “fill in” the shadows with less risk of over exposing the skies.

All this of course, requires time and a cooperative subject! I’ve used the Shadows/Highlight function in Photoshop to try to bring out more detail in the heavy shadows which has improved the detail slightly, albeit at the expense of increased noise.

Cheers

Dennis

PS – you know your birds and fish!

[jjjnettie]

Image 4 was my favourite Chris.
Great captures.
You spent your time away well.
Sorry I missed you on your way home.

[ving]

quite jealous atm... that would have been quite a sight!
good find!

[hotspur]

thank you,Dennis,Stephen,Jennette and Ving

it was good to get some feed back on these images,it was a real

challange to get these,i really did get close,yes-it was going through

my mind,that if he was where i was,and i was where he was i wouldnt

have backlight problem,i did consider a 180 degree manouver,then having

to use manal focus,and try to stay hiden,certainly more challanging

than 'big calm' photos,i was pleased with these,i think they were the

i could do,given my position,and low qaulity lens,

The most amazing thing is his talons,zoom in have a look at those!

big long hook like!

thank you Dennis for manipulation,i have been meaning to contact

you,about how to go about it,i will give the full res version ago

in adobe photo shop,Finally here is another pic-he knows i am there!

[Jeffkop]

Great images Chris ... nothing like capturing nature doing its thing ... and doing it so well. Excellent set of pictures.