Lesser adjutant stork

[Vipin Sharma]

Just returned from a trip to Sunderbans. Amazing place with still lots of birds and mammals yet to be explore from jungle. Seen some of the rarest among birds , shall post those pictures soon.
This LESSER ADJUTANT STORK seen here in air , I took the entire flying sequence of this giant bird from Sunderbans.
Canon 7D, Shooting Mode Aperture-Priority AE
Tv( Shutter Speed )-1/800 ,Av( Aperture Value )-7.1, Metering Mode-Evaluative Metering, ISO Speed 800 ,
Lens-Sigma150-500mm, Focal Length 500.0mm

[Rajan Kanagasabai]

Beautiful picture and great timing. There is a small tilt which you can correct through PP. A slightly off centered composition with a bit more space facing the bird would have been great, but i think there is a bush (bottom left corner) which you were trying to avoid. Did you also try a vertical. Loved the landing pose and details on the wings.

Thanks for sharing

Rajan

[Vipin Sharma]

Rajan , only a small window was available to shoot the sequence. I shot the entire sequence , this is a take off shot. All these shots were taken from vibrant boat and of course camera is hand held.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Nice upwards stroke of wings. For flight photography either the full upward stroke of wings look good or the complete downward wing stroke. While clicking flight shots, it is important to understand that there is a very narrow window to click good shots and it is generally 2-3 shots after which the bird has already passed you or before which the angle is not right.

In this case composition wise the bird is at the middle of the frame. Were you using the central autofocus point?

Continuously pressing the shutter button to hold on to focus may at times result in the AF point locking on to foliage if the bird is passing behind vegetation.

The better technique is to acquire focus using the central af, as for most of the cameras the central af point has cross type sensors and is most effective. So acquire focus with that and then let the bird remain in the frame to the side with more space in front. Periodically depress the focus button (either shutter or * button if you have programmed that to trigger the AF) to get the focus back on the bird. Click when the bird is close to you and in the right angle slightly before passing you. A couple of seconds later the bird would have passed you and its back would be towards you. So no point in firing shots except to impress some non-photographers.

[Vipin Sharma]

Sabyasachi , Thnx indeed for your comments.
I used central auto focus and bird was continuously in sharp focus till he passed out of camera window. I used AF locking technique b'cose bird was not flying away from me, it was parallel in direction. I took some amazing shots of taking off till he was in the air.

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

Nice image of the bird in flight, under trying conditions. This large bird is resident and localised only in a few places in the Sundarbans. It looks like taking off from near the bank of a sweet water tank, may be close to Sudhanyakhali watch tower (or Sajnekhali). One can see only one or two of them at one place. Tiger preys upon them. Thanks for sharing.SaktiWild