Changeable Hawk Eagle with prey

[Vaishnavi Rajan]

Hello all

This was at Kabini y/day. We were part of a wildlife photography workshop (Sudhir Sivaram) and were on a Safari when this CHE swooped down on the Myna. The helpless bird had no chance and in a flash, the powerful talons had sliced through the neck. Luckily, the suffering ended swiftly for the myna. The eagle spent quite a while posing with the prey and slowly started eating the bird. Light was extremely low for the monsoon clouds had darkened the evening sky.

5DM II, Canon 100-400 IS, f 5.6, SS 1/60, Hand Held, ISO 1600

Please review, critique and advice.

thanks
Vaishnavi

[Roopak Gangadharan]

Nice moment. like the pose and compo. the image looks a bit over sharpened and the details seem lost... was this far off ??

TFS
Roopak

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Vaishnavi,
Nice moment captured. How much is the crop?

The image is not sharp. You should also check the AF point. It probably is locked ahead of the bird. There appears to be subject movement ie. the bird has turned its head when you clicked. Normally these raptors keep their head still in one position. So it is important to anticipate and then click.

The shutter speed was not high. However, at 1/60 it is possible to get sharp shots.
You may need to check your handholding technique. It may also be possible that your technique is good, but someone else moved the very moment you clicked. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Rajan Kanagasabai]

Hi Roopak

I was not on that Jeep, so can't really say how far, but the original picture does not indicate it very far. The crop is actually very small and the original image does look a lot sharper with more details.

Maybe a larger file size has been loaded cutting out the details. I'll ask for a smaller version of the same to be loaded soon.

regards
Rajan

[Abhirup Dutta Gupta]

Great capture...