Mississippi Kites

[waltesefalcon]

Where I live we have an abundance of Mississippi Kites. They nest here, and can be found sitting in our trees, on power poles, or just soaring about pretty much anytime you go outside. This morning I decided to try to photograph a pair of juveniles that were sitting on the power pole out back. I did crop these a bit, and on the last three, where I was shooting from behind the kites, I did bring the exposure up a touch in darktable.

I was shooting towards the east, so in this first shot I had the ISO at 280, the speed at 1/1000, and f~8. It is very underexposed, but I like the silhouette.

I kept the ISO at 280, but dropped the speed down to 1/500, and the f~5.6.

I feel this one is slightly clearer. I dropped the ISO to 140 and the speed to 1/250 while keeping the f~5.6. I would keep these setting for the subsequent shots as well.

 

[Basil]

Very similar to our Kestrel's we have around here.

 

[waltesefalcon]

Very similar to our Kestrel's we have around here.

They are. We also have American Kestrels here, and sometimes it is hard to tell which is which, the juvenile Kites have a similar appearance to the Kestrel. They have very similar hunting habits, but the Kites are about twice the size of the Kestrels.

 

[DrEntropy]

Walter, I took "liberties" with two of your images, used the "curves" tool in GIMP to bring out some detail in the underexposed areas.

I never realized how small the kestrels are, almost hard to believe they're raptors.

 

[waltesefalcon]

No sweat Doc, I appreciate the work. I found shooting them a little tricky due to the early morning light, and their position with the sun behind them.

Kestrel's are very small, I believe their average wingspan is less than two feet. For comparison, the Mississippi Kites in my photos have an approximately three foot wingspan.

 

[waltesefalcon]

Okay, I had a better outing today. I forgot to mention on Tuesday that I was using my 30~70mm AF-S Nikkor.
All these were shot at 300MM, ISO 140, 1/250, f~8.

I caught this guy preening, and then he decided to take flight and alight on the power pole the two were on on Tuesday. The flight photos were very hard to catch as I was still zoomed in, and he didn't go far (one power pole over).

 

[DrEntropy]

Much better lighting situation! In-flight shots are a whole different animal. You have another two stops of glass (ie. ∱5.6) to get a balance for an increase in shutter speed, to 1/500th or so. I'd suggest kicking the ISO up, you can get really good results going up to as high as 2000 with enough daylight. Check out "Auto ISO" as well.

 

[waltesefalcon]

Thanks Doc. I was unprepared for his short flight, and had no time to change any of the settings. I need to definitely consider using Auto ISO when photographing birds, because I am just not good enough to quickly change the settings on my camera. I should probably look into how to program presets on the camera, so I can change to a f5.6 and a 1/500 speed on the fly (pun intended).

 

[DrEntropy]

Look to setting up the user settings (U1 & U2).