Brahminy Kite

[Mrudul Godbole]

Photographed this a few days back by a road side. It was feeding on something. A lower angle was not possible as the road was slightly raised and there was a drain in between. Full frame image.

Canon 50D, 100-400mm IS USM, ISO 400, f6.3, 1/2000, hand held.

Comments and critiques welcome..

[Abhishek Jamalabad]

Fantastic eye contact! Never seen a Brahminy kite's eye so closely :). Love the details of the beak too. The angle looks good enough to me. Would have liked a little more separation between the tail and the frame edge if possible.
TFS

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Nice image. The details have come out well. I have a special affinity for these brahminy kites. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Satishchandra Ranadive]

Excellent close-up.Loved the head angle and eye.Beautiful colors.

[Roopak Gangadharan]

Great details and eye contact. powerful beak. It is called ' Krishna Parind ' (krishna's kite) in malayalam.

TFS
Roopak

[Atul Sinai]

Fantastic shot Mrudul. The eye and the beak look excellent.

Thanks for sharing.

Regards,
Atul

[Tapas Chattopadhyay]

Brilliant shot!!!!!

[Bhargava Srivari]

Nice eye contact. I love these birds :) Wish the bird was more parallel to the sensor plane, and any particular reason for shooting only at f6.3? I find f7.1 the sharpest aperture on the 100-400..

tfs

[Mrudul Godbole]

Thanks all for the comments.



any particular reason for shooting only at f6.3? I find f7.1 the sharpest aperture on the 100-400..


Bhargava, I wanted a high shutter speed as I was trying to shoot it in flight too (will post that soon). Also I have used a wide range of apertures on 100-400 and I have found all of them very sharp. I think with proper hand holding techniques, 100-400 can give very sharp results at any aperture.
You can see the Civet image I had uploaded earlier at f6.3 at just 1/8 has come out quite well.

http://www.indiawilds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6549&highlight=civet

Thanks for your comments.

[Bhargava Srivari]

Yes. I still remember the civet picture- a very very good one at that. I agree that the 100-400 can produce sharp images at almost all apertures and its almost easy to handhlod the lens thanks to the realtively light weight, but I always found f7.1 to be the sweet spot if you know what I mean.

Thanks for the quick reply :)

[Sabyasachi Patra]

I have shot with this lens and don't see any drop in sharpness at f5.6. Also, in this scene one needs to carefully evaluate if a higher depth of field (due to f7.1, f8 etc) is going to reveal some junk thrown in the background. :D