Sharp Shinned Hawk

[Dmanmastertracker]

 Stumbled into this guy sitting with a Northern Harrier last weekend.

[boneaddict]

Did you crank the saturation on him?  I've never seen one so brightly colored.

[quadrafire]

Beautiful bird!

[jmx369]

Awesome photo!

[losdaddy7]

 

[Dmanmastertracker]

 Doug, slightly over-exposed, saturation is only a plus 2. The setting sun I think added a little hue.

[klindstr]

Wow, that is awesome looking.

[MuleyorBust]

beautiful pic man!

[Dmanmastertracker]

 Thank you all for the comments.

[ivarhusa]

Very nice.  How close were you to him?

[Hornseeker]

No doubt! Every sharp shin I see is kinda drab...then again, I might be getting them mixed up with a coopers... Great PIc! Beautiful Bird!

[h2ofowlr]

Very cool looking bird.

[Dmanmastertracker]

Very nice.  How close were you to him?

  In the hawk photo I was at approximately 35' @ 500mm. I don't know why but I seem to have the luck lately. I saw another one today at about 45' and didn't have the camera. Then I came home and had the rarest of all birds in my back yard, a Say's Phoebe. I don't believe there has ever been one recorded in King County in September.

[Dmanmastertracker]

No doubt! Every sharp shin I see is kinda drab...then again, I might be getting them mixed up with a coopers... Great PIc! Beautiful Bird!

 Best way to tell the difference between the males, other than the Cooper's is larger is the contrast on the crown. The Cooper's has a nearly jet-black crown, Sharp Shinned is more a dark-grey on the crown.

[ivarhusa]

Dman,

I admire your knowledge of birds.  I am just coming into the game, this last couple of years.  I set my goal to collect identifiable pictures of 100 different bird species, and am up to 66. Just got an L-glass lens (100-400) that takes away any excuse I might have for grainy or blurry pictures.

Care to offer (anyone?) some tips for good bird photography?  I am stewing now, over the tradeoffs between ISO an aperture. Always use largest aperture and lowest practical ISO?

Can you get really crisp images with ISOs as high as 400 to 1600 (Canon)?

With image stabilization, do you still hold out for shutterspeeds faster than the inverse of the focal length? I should think not, but do you TRUST it for two stops?

Ivar