Crested Serpent Eagle

[Mrudul Godbole]

Photographed this in Bandipur.

Canon 50D, 100-400mm L IS USM, ISO 400, f7.1, 1/80, hand held

Comments and critiques welcome..

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Light seems pretty bad. Was it in the morning?

This is nice raptor and looks great in early morning or evening light. The eye contact is nice, as the head is nicely aligned to the camera. You got it resonably clear. This needed a positive exposure compensation to throw in more light on the bird, however, I guess due to the low shutter speed you chose not to. You were already in ISO 400 and I won't prefer moving into the ISO 800 area in 50D. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Bhargava Srivari]

Agree with Sabyasachi on the light not being too conducive. It certainly needed more shutter speed, but that f7.1 was needed I guess! Did you try a vertical composition? Also, regarding that comment by Sabyasachi about not preferring ISO 800..is the 50D usable at higher ISO's or gives grainy images? I am asking because, light in south Indian jungles never is too supportive...one needs to switch to higher ISO's to get at least usable images..becasue sometimes when one tries to stay at ISO 400 or so, you might end up losing the images completely because of very low shutter speed!

Cheers

Bhargava

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Bhargava,
The 50D is usable at higher ISOs. I have tried the 50D at ISO 800 as well. However, better to try to pull it off with a lower shutter speed. The 100-400 lens is handholdable and with proper technique you can get sharp images with even 1/40 seconds. Ofcourse, no one should be moving in the vehicle.

If there is a rare scene, the better to be safe and shoot a few with higher ISOs.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Abhishek Jamalabad]

A very nice shot given the conditions. Nicely composed. I like the wet look . You could crop out the hint of leaf/twig at the top of the frame. Is the focus point correct?
TFS.

[Mrudul Godbole]

Thanks everyone for the comments.

Is the focus point correct?
TFS.

Abhishek, the focus was right near the eye. I too checked it before converting, thinking the focus was locked on the leaves infront. I have attached the screenshot of the focus points in ZoomBrowser.

[Praveen Siddannavar]

Wow! Nice monsoon feel to the image. Aperture 4.5 or 5.6 would have been better I guess, the focus is spot on
tfs

[Roopak Gangadharan]

Nice one mrudul.

Tfs
Roopak