Egyptian vulture in rain

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Egyptian Vulture Neophron percnopterus in rain. I love their bright yellow coloured head. A recent paper in Nature journal says that the bright yellow coloured head is due to the carotenoid pigments.

Canon EOS 1D Mark II, Canon EF 400mm F2.8 L IS USM, EF 2xII, ISO 400, f8, 1/400, full frame image.

Look forward to your comments and critiques.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Mrudul Godbole]

Nice enviornment photograph. Majestic pose. Liked the head turn. The frame is a bit tight for me, would have loved some more space on top and left.

[Praveen Siddannavar]

Nice close up, i agree with Mrudul its a bit too tight probably you have croped it a bit too much, i guess to get the BG feel of rain drops.
It will be a good idea to mention the location where the image was shot in this way we get to know more places for birding especially beginners like me.
thanks,

[Bibhav Behera]

Nice perch and good pose. Agree about the tight frame... 1.4 TC perhaps

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Praveen,
The image is not cropped. It is a full frame image. As Bibhav suggested using a 1.4x instead of the 2x converter would have given more space. I didn't choose to do so. I felt having more space would result in inclusion of more out of focus vegetation in the image. That would have been distracting. To get all the vegetation in focus would have been tough. You can see that I was already using f8 aperture. Selecting a further narrow aperture say f11 would have reduced the light by one more stop and hence the shutter speed would have dropped down to 1/200.

In this case, there is a slight head turn and hence I kept more space at the back than ahead.

I photographed this at a place on the way to hessarghatta, about 50kms from bangalore. Can't pinpoint the place for you. Apana had shown us this place. Along with Mrudul I had been to this place once. May be when I am in bangalore next time, we can go there.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Praveen Siddannavar]

Sure Sabyasachi, when you plan to visit blore do inform me in advance we should meet up.

[Atul Dhamankar]

Nice shot. Just need some space towards head.