Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/07/07
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]The Cooper's Hawk, a fairly large predator of smaller birds, lives is densely-forested areas in the temperate and southern latitudes of North America. A few weeks ago I located a Copper's Hawk nest and made a few photos. I'll be the first to say these are not my best work, but I'm posting them to illustrate some of the technical difficulties involved in getting some of these bird photos. The light in the forests is very difficult to work with; where there are holes in the forest canopy, anything struck by direct sunlight needs something close to sunny 16 exposure. Shaded areas are very dark; aside from receiving no direct sunlight, light from the sky is also blocked. What light does reach the shaded areas of the forest floor is filtered through green foliage. In making these photos (and more yesterday, not processed yet) I looked for even lighting to prevent blown-out highlights and detail-less shadows. Getting even lighting in the forest means staying in the shadows, where exposures can be on the order of 1/15 sec @ f/5.6 with K64. The first photo, posted a number of days ago, was made when I first located the nest site, with the 400mm f/6.8 Telyt with shoulder stock, & monopod, leaning against a handy tree: http://www.wildlightphoto.com/birds/coha01a.jpg Aside from the lighting issues, the dense forest makes it difficult to get a clear view of the bird, and to avoid most of the twigs and brush that obscure my view my choice of positions is very limited. My location is also limited by my lack of immunity to Poison Oak (Rhus diversiloba). For those who are not familar with this plant, the oils in the leaves and stems cause a very itchy skin rash similar to that caused by Poison Ivy in eastern North America. The Wild Turkeys <http://www.wildlightphoto.com/birds/witu.html> that live in this area are accustomed to seeing non-violent people so I can avoid much of the brush by getting closer with a shorter (280mm) lens. The Cooper's Hawks are also accustomed to seeing people but will not allow anyone as close as the Turkeys will. By now the young hawks have left the nest but they and the adults are staying near the nest site so I returned last weekend with the big 560mm f/5.6 Telyt and tripod: http://www.wildlightphoto.com/birds/coha01b.jpg I'm not satisfied with this photo either because the busy, blotched background makes it difficult to separate parts of the bird from the background. This bird was in partial sunlight so I waited for a cloud to pass in front of the sun to reduce the brightness range. Even so, the white feathers by the hawk's tail are blown out. The exposure was 1/15 sec @ f/5.6 with mirror pre-release. As long as the hawks stay near the nest site I'll keep working to improve my photos of the species. More in a few weeks.... Doug Herr Birdman of Sacramento http://www.wildlightphoto.com - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html