Having burnt the candle working with local Badgers last night I was a little later than normal heading out and about this morning and as I passed between Penzance and Newlyn three blasts of the horn of the Scillonian reminded me that it was passed Nine AM. I took a few shots of her as she pushed on out across Mounts Bay and I must say that this photogenic little ship looked very Ship shape and Bristol Fashion as she started her umpteenth voyage out to the Scillies probably with a gaggle of excited 1st time visitors to the islands on board.
Not to be outdone the fisherman of Newlyn were also out in the bay conducting some sort of Gear repair or test operations, Perhaps not quite so photogenic as the Scillonian but maybe just as interesting.
I carried on along the coast road and was struggling to get going on a wildlife subject when I spotted an 'old Faithfull' female Peregrine sunning herself while perched high on a cliff ledge, I parked up and carefully moved in for a little closer.
She had no prey on the ledge but I could tell by the way her eyes were to the sky that she was looking to make a kill and would probably be leaving shortly so I settled down and set my camera looking to register her take-off.
Time passed as she kept those hawk-eyes on the skyline but there was little potential bird prey in the area but I was in no hurry as we both sat soaking up the morning sun. I had also noticed that our bird had some blood stains on the right hand side of her chest feathers and there were other birds feathers caught up in the Gorse to the side of her so she had probably already taken prey earlier in the morning.
Time passed and our fine female Peregrine eventually takes to the air to chase its chosen prey,
PHOTOGRAPHING A REGISTERED TAKE OFF
If you want to record a registered take-off sequence perhaps to produce a montage of any wildlife subject to show its movement you need to use a sturdy tripod that will register your subjects starting position without producing any camera movement.
Use multi exposure of around ten frames a second or as fast as you have got available, A fast shutter speed of perhaps 1/2000th sec to freeze each frame and auto focus tracking if available.
Set your focal point to one side of your frame area allowing for subject movement if you know the direction that your subject will possibly be moving or central if you are uncertain and you have to allow room for your subject movement across your cameras composition of the first frame when selecting your lens to subject distance
Using remote shutter release assemblies can also help your timing to capture the immediate start of a sequence while you continuously watch your subject through binoculars or your camera viewfinder,
Catching the moment of take off is the key to success which demands your full attention while waiting which can sometimes be a long time, In the first frame below their is very little suggestion that this bird is going to take-off yet half a second and five frames later it will be a metre away in the air and a few seconds later, Gone !!
Creating a new montage composition
In this particular case I have chosen just frames 2, 3 and 4 of the six images above to create a montage by using Photoshop Magnetic Lasso tool to cut the Peregrine from frames 3 and 4 and then opened them together with frame 2 in full image composition to drag and drop them into.
Different subjects can be treated in alternative ways by using any number of original images and created compositions, I find the whole process challenging, interesting, rewarding and relative to the encounters that I have been watching on the day.
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