Osprey fishing at sunset

[wfooshee]

I've seen some wonderful Osprey images here and thought I'd share a set of mine. Light was poor, being very late in the day, approaching sunset, but it was my first capture of the actual grab!! I've shot Ospreys carrying their fish, and perched and eating, and I've seen it happen too far away to photograph, but never got the grab from the water until this day. And it was my birthday!!!

I don't have the glass some of you guys have for this, but I do what I can.

D7000 with the 70-300 ED VR lens, shutter-priority 1/500, ISO 400, aperture was either f:5.6 or f:8, depending on the light at that instant. These are 1-to-1 crops of the frame at 1280 on the long side.

1.

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A few wingbeats now and the prize is lifted from the water!

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11.

I got rather lucky after that, as he circled back and carried the fish past me to get into the trees to feed, rather than flying off into the distance away from me. Sunset light made for interesting eyes!!

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15.

And into the tree. The hike to get to the other side of the tree was about 10 minutes to go around a marshy area, but the face-on shot was much closer than the from-the-back. #17 is actually at 1/250, he was pretty well in shadow.

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[coastalconn]

Be careful, Ospreys can lead to $1k's of gear.. Overall i think you did pretty good for what you have. I remember how excited I was when I got my first dive sequence 3 years ago. It is a pretty cool thing!

A few thoughts... It's tough getting these guys at 1/500th. I try to shoot them at 1/2000th. Judging by the light that probably couldn't happen. You might want to consider trying manual mode with auto-ISO. You can set the shutter speed and aperture and let the camera choose the correct ISO for exposure. This allows you to keep a high enough shutter speed for flight and use your lens where it is optimal. You can also adjust exposure comp.. Not that you can always get position, but they always dive into the wind and take off into the wind..

 

[baturn]

Nice sequence!

 

[WesternGuy]

Very nice sequence.

WesternGuy

 

[John Hunt]

Looks like you had a very good birthday!

 

[Woodsman]

Looks like you had a lot of fun with the Ospreys that day. Good stuff. #12 is my favorite, nicely done

 

[wfooshee]

#12 makes me think of the back of a coin. I like #15 for the "Silver Surfer" position, though.

 

[b_twill]

Very nice sequence! #12 does it for me!