Bird-Shoot

On a lazy day I spotted some raptors that look like African Hawk-Eagles hanging out on a tree, probably on a hunt.

They are great birds to have around, since they help keep any snake or rodent populations in check, until you let your free range chickens out, with their chicks...

Sometimes, they are so wild that game rangers have to be called to put them down. Someone could be working the farm and out of nowhere your scalp could be in tatters. Fortunately, they may make a warning swoop and the disturbance of air in its wake is a fair enough warning.

This time around it was I coming to shoot. With a camera. The bright sky in the background has denied me some good exposure of the subject, coupled with the fact I was using a cheap 70-300mm lens on a canon APSC sensor and still lacked 'enough' reach. The photos here are even heavily cropped for better focus on the subject.

One with a good eye will notice I dumbed the highlights a bit far in one or two photos...

A screenshot of one of the photos I was working on in Darktable. I like the ability of the software to de-fringe the photos I pull from the cheap lens.

The photos may not be that clear because focusing at the furthest reach is a bit difficult. There is usually a shallow depth of field the more one zooms into the subject. Lack of image stabilization is also an issue, but that doesn't mean you don't capture the moment. The meticulous stuff is left to the professionals.