There are a few lads here have
falcons I think
and even have a get together with them and go hunting with them guess you must be patient or lucky or bit of both as your pics are superb 
thank you for the nice comment. Just lucky mainly I think 
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I thought I would tag this story onto here if @realspeed donât mind , I thought it would interest you and other Bird Watchers
No I donât mind , but how about putting up photos of birds of prey you have taken next time. I would love to see them and maybe able to pass on a few tips. The heading tag actually says your photos.
I often have mentioned about editing and done correctly can vastly improve a photo
Here is an example
original
the idea this time is mainly to âfocus on the birdâ in flight in this example, but everything in the lower half of the photo to me I find distracting although quite amusing
So with concentrating on the bird only and a bit of editing I came up with this, best seen on full screen.
now lower haff cropped out and little bit of tree branch removed - jessies removed - haze correction- bit more contrast - darker area lightened slightly to show wings better- tiny bit of sharpening. to give some idea of the process and most important room in the photo for the bird to fly into and wanted to keep most of the cloud in shot as well
of course it all depends o what one wants in a photo. Always have to be careful of over editing which can cause lots of unwanted different issues.
Is this cheating I often read?. Well first of all it depends on what you want in a photo. If this means other elements are also included to get the shot then removed. So my answer is do you want to get the best out of a photo or not? if this means removing unwanted elements in a photo then I donât consider it cheating. If I had not given an idea on what I did in editing on one would be the wiser. You could go on to say that setting up lighting for a portrait is another form of cheating.
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DM ot close by, the nearest proper zoo I suppose is about 2 hrs away by car if not further.
There is" Drusillas Park is a small 10-acre zoo near to Alfriston, in East Sussex, UK. Its exhibits are targeted towards children between 2 and 10 years old.".
HOWLETTS WILD ANIMAL PARK , CANTERBURY, KENT ⊠Howletts is a 90-acre wildlife park, home to more than 400 animals, when Sue and I went there the animals were in compounds far too small for them and in a poor state of maintainance. hope it has been improved since then
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Realspeed, l hope l am not hijacking your thread but this is my sonâs bird, a Harris Hawk called Spook.
He has been a falconer from the age of 13. He couldnât have a bird in Australia but now heâs back in the UK,he has taken up the hobby again.
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the trick is in enjoying whatever form of photography grabs you. Be it wildlife- portrait- still life or whatever. Learning by trial and error is in my opinion far better than being taught the same things many others have been taught before. Self taught brings out individuality, mass teaching doesnât . This doesnât mean not to go onto sites such as youtube to pick up tips her and there and adapt to what one wants. I donât believe in âmachine gunningâ to get one photo out of tens or hundreds of others capturing he right moment for me is the way to go.
there is one particular set of mine I really like and not shown before I donât think
Just capturing those moments in time of a bird turning at high speed!!!
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@realspeed , great shots, RS, Do you think you should have run a faster
shutter speed ?? There appears to be a slight blurryness to the subject ?
maybe itâs me eyes they have deteriorated !! 
maybe so these were at 1/1250sec , which at the time guessing would be fast enough. This was on my old Nikon D300 which is only a 12 MP camera so I donât think possibly a faster shutter speed would have helped much. No doubt if I had edited may have improved them a bit. Taken way back in 2009
good question , there is a program called âKUSO exif viewerâ and downloaded onto my computer. So when right click on photo in the drop down list is Kuso which gives details on the original photo.
Standard Information
Make: NIKON CORPORATION
Model: NIKON D300
Software: Ver.1.03
ImageSize: 4288x2848
ComponentsConfiguration: Y, Cb, Cr, -
CreateDate: 2009:03:29 13:17:29
ModifyDate: 2009:03:29 13:17:29
DateTimeOriginal: 2009:03:29 13:17:29
ExposureTime: 1/1250"
Aperture: F4.0
MaxAperture: F2.8
Sorry realspeed, l forgot to say⊠your pictures are wonderful.
Thank You for posting them.
I love birds of prey and l enjoy going to Warwick Castle to see the falconry shows in the grounds by the river.
ART thank you . I have been there many times and have loads of photos of Warwick Castle but that would need another thread to post in
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What a beauty Art.
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