This spring I had the pleasure of following a peregrine falcon nest in a nature environment on a side of a rock face. It was an unforgettable experience being able to watch the young grow and eventually fledge the nest. Here are some of my favourite shots. All shot on the Canon R + 500 F4 II +1.4xIII
Exceptional shots Mike. What an awesome experience that must have been. You are the master of the EOS R...I hope you are getting an R5...that thing will be uber impressive in your hands.
YGMV
Lovely peregrine images, Mike! They are definitely my favorite birds for me as well from photographing them in the last 4 months or so. The season is over down here and the chicks moved on already. The nest showing the 4 chicks is special to me as I couldn’t see that at “my” location. Well-done!
Terrific photos and video! Did all 4 of the chicks fledge successfully? What a pretty location for the nest. My experience of falcon chicks comes from a webcam set atop the Campanile at the UCBerkeley campus. Not nearly as pretty, but the young chicks were just as voracious as the ones in your videos.
kdacharya wrote:
lovely shots, Mike. 4 chicks that's awesome.
thanks for sharing. the videos are great as well.
Thank you very much!
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arbitrage wrote:
Exceptional shots Mike. What an awesome experience that must have been. You are the master of the EOS R...I hope you are getting an R5...that thing will be uber impressive in your hands.
YGMV
TFS
Geoff
Thanks Geoff, really appreciate it. Currently leaning heavily towards the R6 but I could be persuaded to the R5 at the last minute.
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morris wrote:
Gorgeous images Mike. 5 and 6 are special.
Morris
Thanks Morris, appreciate the picks.
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dallvr wrote:
Terrific photos and video! Did all 4 of the chicks fledge successfully? What a pretty location for the nest. My experience of falcon chicks comes from a webcam set atop the Campanile at the UCBerkeley campus. Not nearly as pretty, but the young chicks were just as voracious as the ones in your videos.
Thanks. Yes, all 4 chicks successfully fledged.It is a beautiful location although a little precarious to photograph from at times.
AGeoJO wrote:
Lovely peregrine images, Mike! They are definitely my favorite birds for me as well from photographing them in the last 4 months or so. The season is over down here and the chicks moved on already. The nest showing the 4 chicks is special to me as I couldn’t see that at “my” location. Well-done!
Joshua
Thanks Joshua. Yes the location is quite beautiful. Even times when the action was slow I would just sit back and enjoy the view.
Mike - these are beautiful images, particularly considering the difficulty of catching peregrines in flight! Do you find the R's burst rate to be extremely limiting? Not meaning to turn this into a "what camera should I buy" thread, but I'm still shooting an 80D and am looking to upgrade (gotta stay w/ Canon due to lens investments) & the R looked good enough for me but I worry about the burst capabilities. Your skills with the body have shown fast bif photography is possible.
Thanks for posting -
MStapert wrote:
Mike - these are beautiful images, particularly considering the difficulty of catching peregrines in flight! Do you find the R's burst rate to be extremely limiting? Not meaning to turn this into a "what camera should I buy" thread, but I'm still shooting an 80D and am looking to upgrade (gotta stay w/ Canon due to lens investments) & the R looked good enough for me but I worry about the burst capabilities. Your skills with the body have shown fast bif photography is possible.
Thanks for posting -
Mike
Thanks Mike for the comments. With regards to the burst rate on the R, yes it's fairly low by today's standards. However when the majority of those shots are in focus, then I am ok with it. IMO the R is very slow to rack focus and the EVF has a bit of a stutter when doing bursts. These are bigger issues IMO than the FPS. However I try to do little things to help the camera as much as possible like pre-focusing and setting the focus limiter (ie 10m-infinity as I dont expect that the peregrine will be less than 10m away from me and if it is, I better duck). With the R I find it does a tremendous job with BIF in the zone AF modes. This was always an issue with previous DSLR's I've owned as they would often miss focus on the BG, etc. So knowing that the R will do well with tracking the bird in a zone AF mode, I basically just keep swinging with the camera and trust that the camera is going to do it's part which it does most of the time. I've had no few keeper since switching to the R, in fact I believe I have many more. I am hoping that all of these issue's will be resolved in the upcoming R5 and R6.
