Although the pandemic has dampened our air travel, I have not slowed down on my weekend road trips. Winter is a special time offering unique spectacles. Unusually saturated blue skies are more easily seen in the winter. In a recent road trip, I was passing by Gardnerville, Nevada, when I chanced upon this red-tailed hawk at the top of the tree. It was early morning and furthermore, the low sun provided great front lighting.
If you have ever worked on photographing birds, you will know that you can never feel satisfied with how close you get. Going even closer is desirable for you, the photographer, to fill the frame with more of the bird. The bird was on this tree that was behind a fence and I couldn’t get any closer, physically. I started with my 200-500mm f5.6 lens at the 500mm end. Not close enough. Then, I added the 1.4x teleconverter. Still not close enough (the bird is too small in the frame). Finally, I added the 2x teleconverter. I wanted to have a closer reach, but this was it.
Now, this lens configuration puts me at 1000mm with a maximum aperture of f/11. You will realize that most camera systems do not offer autofocus at this aperture. Mine doesn’t either. The next part of the challenge is to achieve focus. Pretty much all of my photography is based on autofocus, but this one had no option but manual. I wear progressive eye glasses, which as you know are optimized for driving when I am looking through it horizontal to the ground, but can help me read fine print if I keep the book just below my chest and look through the corner of the glasses. I was wearing these during the shoot. Looking through the eyepiece and trying achieve perfect focus manually, trusting my eyes to discern the exact setting, is a futile exercise. I did my best and made at least a hundred frames, with slightly varying positions of the focus ring, around what my eyes told me was good focus. Then, I prayed, that at least one of those frames should be perfectly in focus. Yes, the bird sat still for all of the 20 minutes I worked to photograph it.
Here’s the result. I got just one critically sharp frame from those ~100. The most important aspect of this photograph for me, is the sharp eye with glint in it.
