If we’re lucky from time to time we get the opportunity to capture an interesting bit of nature playing out before our eyes. I had one such opportunity on Saturday afternoon when I was able to photograph a blackbird chasing a hawk in flight. I was sitting at my kitchen table having just returned from Grimsby harbour after trying to photograph some terns in flight with my Nikon 1 setup. It was a very dull, grey, overcast day so I cut my session short and had returned home.
I was casually looking at my tern images on the rear panel of my Nikon 1 V2 when I noticed a quick reflection on the top of my glass kitchen table of a hawk flying overhead. I jumped up from my chair and dashed out of the patio door onto the deck to try to get some images of the hawk in flight, with the Nikon 1 CX 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 VR mounted on the camera. Luckily, I had not changed the settings on my camera so all I had to do was locate the hawk, acquire focus, and fire.
I took a very short, initial burst of hawk images and was watching the hawk when I noticed a red-winged blackbird diving down aggressively from above the hawk. I figured something interesting was about to happen so I re-acquired focus on the hawk just as the blackbird entered the frame and began chasing the hawk.
Since my Nikon 1 V2 was set for 15fps in AF-C with subject tracking I was able to capture a run of 25 images while keeping both birds in frame for just under 2 seconds. Within a moment the altercation was over and the blackbird and hawk flew off in different directions. I came back in from my deck wondering if my Nikon 1 gear had been able to capture anything usable.
I went upstairs to my office and opened my files with DxO OpticsPro 10 and as I expected the background sky was terrible – just a wash of dull grey. I had my V2 set for spot metering in the hope that I could at least get decent metering on the terns I had been trying to photograph earlier and I hoped that setting would help with my hawk images. So, I begin working with the RAW files.
I let OpticsPro 10 do its automatic adjustments, then took highlights down slightly (-10) and adjusted shadows a bit (+5). I moved Smart Lighting to ‘medium’, made some small adjustments to the Lens Softness settings, then applied PRIME noise reduction.
I then exported a DNG file into CS6. When the DNG files opened in CS6 they were quite dark as I had anticipated. I tweaked the contrast slightly, then was very aggressive with the shadow and white sliders which made a significant improvement to the files. I then took the files into the Nik Suite for some very minor, final adjustments.
Given the poor lighting conditions I wasn’t expecting great images but I did some acceptable quality ones for an article. All of the images needed to be cropped and they are all about 33% of the original frames. All things considered I was quite pleased with how my Nikon 1 V2 performed with the CX 70-300 f/4.5-5.6 lens.
Technical Note: All images in this article were taken hand-held using a Nikon 1 V2 with Nikon 1 CX 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 lens. The Nikon 1 V2 was set for 15fps in AF-C with subject tracking, VR was turned off. White balance was set to Auto. Auto 160-6400 ISO was used.
Article, images and YouTube video images Copyright Thomas Stirr. All rights reserved. No use, duplication of any kind, or adaptation is allowed without written consent.
Love it! Thanks for sharing. Great stuff.
Glad you liked the article Scott!
Tom
Thanks for the supportive comment Mary – much appreciated!
Tom
Thanks again for an excellent example of how to best use this lens and what you can potentially achieve with a little practice. Following your advice, I did purchase this lens and my initial impressions are very favourable. I have a question regarding the photos of the hawk, I notice VR was off, at what shutter speed do you think you are better off without the VR?
Thanks again, keep up the great work.
Hi Serge,
I’m pleased you enjoyed the article…and that your initial impressions of the CX 70-300 are favourable. When photographing birds in flight I typically try to use a minimum shutter speed of 1/1250, and this shutter speed (or anything at 1/1000 or higher) there is no reason to keep the VR on. The shots in the article were taken at 1/1600. Keeping the VR off when shooting birds-in-flight at higher shutter speeds helps to ensure that you will get the framing that you see through your viewfinder. This is especially important with AF-C runs.
The VR on Nikon 1 lenses is quite good and it is important to pause momentarily when shooting still subjects at slower shutter speeds to let the VR settle, otherwise the subject may not be framed exactly as we are intending.
Tom
I love my CX 70-300 too! Thanks for the positive words Vernon.
Tom
Great article! And the photos are wonderful! From a fellow fan of the mighty V2 rocket! And I definitely share your enthusiasm for the Nikon 1 CX 70-300 VR. I have had mine for a while now and know how good it is!
This is an awesome sighting/photographing.
I remember driving on highway 401 once and seeing a hawk chased by a smaller bird, I bet it was the same as what you saw/photographed.
Keep up the good work!
Thanks for the positive comment John! I’m glad you enjoyed the article.
Tom
Tom:
As always a nice post and great information. I do have a question about the DxO processing.
My usual workflow is to import into Lightroom 5, create 1:1 views on import, review, tag and toss. I then take images into DxO to get the benefit of Prime noise reduction and lens corrections, sometimes a few other features. It works well for the most part.
Yesterday I decided to import the NEF files directly into DxO for RAW conversion, and then export as DNG. It worked fine. But looking at the _DxO.dng files that were produced I realized the files were now averaging 150 MB, versus the 30 MB that came out of the camera and the 30 MB that are the result of LR5 RAW conversion to DNG.
Am I missing something here? I really can’t afford to return from a shoot with 500 or 1,000 or so images and end up with 75 to 150 GB of data. It’s the issue of storage and the file transfer time to an outboard drive, even at USB 3.0 speeds. Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated. The DxO software and company are great in almost all other respects.
jo
Hi jbossart,
Let me qualify my response by saying that I am not anywhere close to being an expert with OpticsPro. You’re absolutely right that there is a difference in size with the DNG files OpticsPro produces compared to the RAW. I checked my files for both my D800 and V2’s and my DNGs are about 3X the size of the original RAWs. I have no idea why your DNG files are 5X larger. If you want to save storage space you could delete your DNGs after you have completed your final image, and save your OpticsPro DOP files so your DxO settings are not lost. The DOP files should be much smaller than the DNGs – the DOPS are usually smaller than the original RAW files.
In terms of your original RAW files you should still be able to open them directly with LR without any problem so you can still return to your previous mode of processing so there shouldn’t be any need to re-shoot anything.
Tom
The hawk must be somewhere near a red-wing blackbird nest. They are extremely aggressive in protecting their nests. Every summer they nest next to a waterway close to my house, and they sometimes attack me or my dog when we walk by. Three times now I’ve had them land on my head with wings flapping, and once I’ve been pecked on the head. Now I only walk in that area wearing a hat.
Hi Richard,
I think you’re right about there being a nest nearby. We haven’t had any issues with being attacked by red-wing blackbirds but our house does back onto some green space and an orchard so its likely there are a lot of nesting birds.
Tom
Thank you for all your articles on the Nikon1 V2s and the various lens. All of these have been most helpful. I like the size and weight of the system, especially when traveling or walking very far.
You’re welcome Paula – I’m glad you’ve been enjoying them! It sounds like you’ve been bitten by the Nikon 1 bug just like I have.
Tom
amazing how nature is. Nice that you were able to capture this and tell us all the story
Glad you enjoyed it Andy!
Tom