Close up Osprey

Here is more of my photo shoot with the Osprey. It was about lunch time, the sun high up. I approached this fellow really slowly and with lots of breaks, taking hundreds of shots and getting a sunburn while doing so. Most pictures are full frame on my Canon 7D with my 100-400mm fully extended. I did only minimal editing. I estimate that I ended up about 7 to 10 metres away from the Osprey. For me, these are the best results that I can get with my set-up and without 'adobing'. If anyone has any ideas where the massive noise in the uncropped photos comes from, please let me know. Surely, the light was not ideal but that should not explain these results. Most shots are taken on ISO 400.

Shortly after I shot this series, I read a review of the Tamron 150-600mm f/5-f/6.3 DiVC USD lens on sumeetmoghe.com. Frankly, I have no idea how this guy can get such crisp photos, let alone how he can shoot at such amazingly low shutter speeds.

1

 Actually, this is a bigger crop of the Osprey watching me. Just for the sake of giving the theme here.

2

Shot taken a bit further away. Just slightly rotated into a full horizontal (1 degree) trying to keep the blurred Oystercatcher in the background. It was unclear to me why this Osprey stayed in the full sun in the flats. It didn't look as if it was targeting wading birds. Also passing birds were ignored. And it didn't seem to mind me at all, doing what it was doing, mostly ignoring me.

3

The Osprey did a few yoga exercises occasionally. Just reminds me of an ice skater. Maybe it was just trying to get its head into its own shadow and shade.

4

 This picture is slightly cropped because the eyes came out quite clear in this shot. Maybe the full frame is better composed though. It was my goal to get a portrait but with a bit of interesting background and a bit of an unusual pose. Got to love the feather hanging down. That was actually a mock start pose. The lift off happened after it relaxed for a second or two.

5

 It is always fascinating that no matter how focussed and prepared you are that you can still miss the moment and make a handling mistake. I didn't cut off the top of the wings on purpose. Actually, I had a bit of room at the bottom where I cropped a tiny bit of muddy blurred ground and off-centring the bird a bit too. The lift off just happened too fast. Also, there are interesting flares to be discovered in the water which I think are glass related. So seems the omnipresent red tinge. Maybe I should experiment with a polarising filter one day.

6

 I love the shadow and the claws in this shot.

7

 Again, shadow, claws and beak with the nasty feather.

8

Uncropped, might gain from it though as I don't like the Osprey to be centred. But to me, the picture lives from the brown ground and the legs still hanging down.

9

And here the Osprey is leaving my frame and keeps the Moreton Island sand dunes behind it too.

10

Bye bye, see you next time around sunrise or sunset time.