Ospreys in the evening

[Steve Foss]

I was a couple weeks too late, but luckily the two young ospreys who are already flying from a nest along the Lucky Boy trail outside Ely stay around the nest a lot and let mom and dad bring fish to them now and then.

These were shot this evening. All with the Canon 1DMk2n and Canon 600 f4L IS, bird in flight shots handheld, nest shots from tripod, all iso200 at f4.5, all center-weighted metering with exposure compensation at +2/3.

The new combo will take some getting used to. Handholding the pig is definitely a good workout for the left deltoid. Not that I mind.

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[Dbl]

Those last two are top-notch. Do we have some new toys?

[polarsusd81]

Yeah, what Dbl said...

Did you pick up some new toys? Excellent photos as always Steve.

[Steve Foss]

Borrrowed some new toys from CPS, is more like it, although the copy of the 600 they sent doesn't have a nick or a scuff on it, and the rubber rings all have that new car smell.

I'll be shooting the snot out of that lens for 10 days, and will just have a really good handle on it by the time it has to go back. I shot the 600 once before, luckily. I may have to head down to some North Shore beaches to grab some migrating shorebirds one of these days.

I was too far from the osprey nest for anything really good. Those two images were pretty strong crops. There was no way to get closer, unfortunately. Pulling detail like that from long-distance shots and severe crops was possible with that lens and the precise focusing capability of the Mk2n. With the 30D and 100-400, it would not have happened. The in-flight shots are full frame, or the next thing to it.

So, not the best of locations but heck, when the FedEx man drops off something like that, you don't sit there in the house just looking at it for a whole day. Can't take any pics that way.

[Dan Thiem]

Very, very cool! Huge sharp talons on them things. Whoa!