Turkey Vulture

JimMcClain · Oct 2, 2014

I took a trip to the SF Bay Area to get a part for my Segway, donated to me from a very generous guy. On my way down the mountain, through the Feather River Canyon and into the rolling hills near Oroville, CA, I sped past a tree with bare branches at the top and what looked like a couple large birds perched up top. As I drove by, I thought they might be eagles or maybe osprey, which are fairly common where I live. But they looked bigger. My hope was that they might be around on my trip home a few days later.

They were. It was a committee of 2 and they didn't seem to be disturbed at all by the freeway traffic (it's a freeway to me - 2 lanes each way with vehicles several seconds and up to a half-minute apart). I pulled over quite a distance away, took some pictures, then moved closer and again, more pictures. I did this 3 or 4 times until I was practically right across the highway from them.

Not sure I could do wildlife photography very well. My oxygen tank ran empty while I was waiting for that perfect shot (a wing spread or something). I was afraid to switch out the tank for fear I would lose the shot, but I finally had to. Those birds didn't seem to care what I did. A big rig drove by and blasted his air horns and that didn't faze them.

Finally, after about an hour or more, one big bird bounded off his perch and flew away. I tried to get the shot, but got only one very blurry picture. So, one vulture left and I was still hopeful I could get something interesting from him.

Soon, almost in slow motion, he lifted off his perch and glided to the branch previously occupied by his fellow hunter. I shot feverishly - I don't know why I didn't think to set my D5300 on continuous. I'd forgotten that I set my camera up for bracketing, so every series I shot was at ISO 400, f/11 and 0.00 eV, 1.00 eV and -1.00 eV. Stoopid me.

Out of over a hundred shots, I think these 2 came out the best. I cloned out a couple of distracting branches, along with some other developing in Lightroom, including cropping to a square format, which I thought was the best for these particular images. My lens was a Nikkor 70.0-300.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 FX at 300mm.

Wish there would have been clouds or one or 2 of the other small birds that were flying around. The time was decent - 8:45 am - but the sun was almost straight over my shoulder.

My hope is you will offer some advice on how to get better shots like this.

Thanks,

Jim

sscarmack · Oct 2, 2014

Nice story. Now I'm not sure if by "Oxygen Tank" you mean lungs and your just saying your getting old and winded, or if you actually do carry a tank (like my grandpa)(not calling you a grandpa

).

But either way, sorry to hear your troubles.

Really nice shots here. I can't offer much advice as I fighting the struggle myself trying to figure out wildlife, but these two shots look good to me. I like the first one best.

Dagwood56 · Oct 2, 2014

I never got into wildlife photography, so I'm pretty much in awe of any shots others take. I like both of these, the first one is excellent in my opinion. You've made an otherwise ugly bird, look pretty regal.

Gary A. · Oct 2, 2014

I think #1 is grand. Keep shooting.

Gary

tirediron · Oct 2, 2014

I'd say ya' done good!

lambertpix · Oct 2, 2014

Very nice -- the light shows off the feathers well. As far as "how-to", you're well on your way, I think. A little luck and a lot of patience to start with, and then learning your equipment well enough to know instinctively what settings you want to choose. Getting caught on the wrong settings is also par for the course -- that gets better with lots & lots of repetition. I like the composition of these, by the way -- the old, dead branch really helps set the mood. I'd consider cropping out the little nub down on the lower-left of #1, but I love the scraggly corner-to-corner orientation of the branch.

Did you hear the birds "speak" at all? We've got black vultures around here, and on rare occasions, they'll bark -- they really sound like like a dog! I saw one in a shelter once named Woof. ;-)

baturn · Oct 2, 2014

Very nice! Thanks for the perseverance to get these and for sharing them.

JimMcClain · Oct 2, 2014

Wow, thanks you guys. Had I been thinking straight (I awoke at 7am that morning - 3 hours before my normal wakeup), I would have wanted to make sure I had optimum settings on my camera. I was using aperture priority and 0.00 eV probably would have been just fine, but I'm not sure how I should have metered. The focus points thing also had me wondering. I was waiting for a little action - a simple wing spread (I saw one do that before I had my camera out), or in-flight - so I don't know what I should have chosen for that.

To me, there is more noise than I want. I didn't think ISO 400 would be the cause of as much as there was. Or maybe it was my PP. I did sharpen in LR, to about 70, and I put the noise adjustment to 38 or 39, but I didn't make any other adjustments in the detail panel.

The lens I used was the best I could afford at the time. it's a AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED that I thought would make the cut, if/when I upgraded to a full-frame camera. But maybe it's just not sharp enough for this. I had to do some serious cropping (from the orig. 6000x4000 to 3511 and 3196 square, respectively) with a loss of over half the picture real estate.

Maybe the AF-S NIKKOR 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II is a lens I should aspire to. Adding a teleconverter for those rare times I might be in a similar situation.

Your thoughts on this would be appreciated. I want this to be a learning experience.

@sscarmack Yes, I'm on o2 24/7. No one to blame but myself. I quit smoking after many tries and a half-dozen years later I had a heart attack from lack of oxygen saturation. That's when I learned I had severe emphysema. But I am years past my supposed expiration date now and getting everything I can out of each day. I like to think photography has breathed new life into me.

It's a damn sight better'n sucking the life out of some of the pictures I take.

Oh, and @lambertpix no, didn't hear the birds make any sounds at all.