The Sentry
My horse is not feeling well again so she spent the night in her stall. After I fed everyone I bundled up and took Tia for a long walk in hopes that it would get her digestive tract going. It wasn’t until we returned that I spotted this hawk sitting on a lower branch of a tree right beside the pasture. Tia and I had passed directly beneath the hawk both going and coming. This seems to be a favorite lookout post for hawks and I’ve seen them sitting there before. One winter we had a pair of hawks who took turns sitting watch and hunting from this very same branch.
I put Tia back in her stall and went into the house to get my camera. I didn’t rush. I figured either the hawk would still be there when I went out or not. I grabbed my monopod and switched over to my 70-200mm Tamron lens. Because it was so cold and blustry outside, I set most of my camera settings while I was still inside. When I went back out the hawk was still sitting right where it was before, so I walked out toward it and started to take a few pictures. The hawk seemed very comfortable with my presence, so after I had a few initial shots I moved around a bit to see if I could find an even better view. Twice I passed directly below the bird and was so close to it that I probably could have poked it in the butt with a fully extended monopod.
I took at least two dozen pictures from different angles, then called it quits. My fingers were burning numb and my stomach was rumbling with hunger. I went back inside to thaw and eat, then downloaded the pictures. I was VERY disappointed overall. Let’s just preface this by saying I’m getting more and more picky about my results every time I shoot. In this case, I had a very cooperative subject. Although the wind was blowing fairly steadily, the bird didn’t move much except to turn it’s head to and fro. I tried very hard to be still for every shot … I didn’t rush and I had set my camera on 2-second delay, which I have found helps when I’m trying to eliminate any camera shake. I thought the majority of my pictures were very well focused with the exclusion of a few where there was a strong gust of wind or the bird or I moved ever so slightly. So I was very dismayed to find that nearly all the pictures I took failed to have the level of crispness that I had hoped to see.
At this point I’m beginning to wonder what I’m doing wrong. Could I, should I have used a tripod instead? Probably. But in doing so I would have had to be willing to take the risk that the bird might fly off while I fumbled to get everything set up. So I took my chances with the monopod and still the pictures were not as clear as they should have been. I must not be setting something correctly, but what?
As I look at my settings I have to wonder where I went wrong. My ISO was 160. I don’t think that was an issue as it’s an overcast day. I was shooting in shutter mode, set at 1/100 second. The white balance was set to Auto White Balance. I did try setting the WB on the cloudy setting, but I liked the AWB better and so I changed it back again. I was using AI Focus, set to Auto Select 19-point selection. Now that might have been the culprit. Perhaps I should have been using the Single Point focus or the Manual Select zone? It’s quite possible my camera was grabbing and focusing on too wide of an area, though as I composed most of the pictures I know only one focus point lit up, leaving me to believe I was focusing on the exact spot that I wanted. (Usually the bird’s head or eyes) But obviously not, since I have only a few pictures that I would say are close to as sharp as I’d thought.
Another thing that perplexes me is that I thought my camera was shooting raw. The menu says I’m shooting RAW + L (large) jpeg, yet when I downloaded to Lightroom it told me that a couple of the pictures were just jpeg! (And sure enough, they were!) What the heck??? Grrr….. My brain hurts.
Oh well. I’ll have to get to the bottom of this somehow. It really frustrates me when I try so hard to do my best, then discover I’m doing only about 80% of what I thought was 95% or (hopefully) even better. My camera is fully capable of taking beautiful, CLEAR pictures …. it’s me that’s screwing up!
On another note, if you look closely you’ll notice the toes and talons of the hawk are bloody. Clearly, it had recently eaten, which might explain it’s tolerance with my bumbling around beneath it. 😉
Dec 6, 2010, 10:21 AM. EST.
Canon EOS 7D
ISO: 160, TV mode, 1/100 sec, f/9.0, 200mm
Lens: Tamron 70-200mm
CurTales 
You must be logged in to post a comment.