While I love this blog, I now pretty much only write on my other two blogs: BirdingBlogs.com and 10,000 Birds - I would love to see you there!

Sunday 7 June 2009

Montagues Harrier flight shots from Kazakhstan

On our first full day out in Kazakhstan, we stopped at one place with lots of Black Larks and a few Pallid and Montagues Harriers. Just getting ready to leave the spot, I had already packed my regular digiscoping setup in to the mini-bus when a beautiful male Montagues Harrier came around. I rushed over to Andy who had a TLS800 setup and stole it from him, getting a few quick snapshots of the harrier.







The complete setup was as follows:
Swarovski STM80HD scope, TLS800 adapter, and Canon EOS 5DII
Hand held

This is a similar setup to that which I used to photograph the Black Kites here in Austria a couple of months ago.

I am not completely sure if this is technically digiscoping as the camera has no separate objective, and the telescope has no ocular, but it is basically using the straight scope as an 800mm equivalent manual focus telephoto lens.

11 comments:

Gaelyn said...

Great shots. Lucky someone else was still set up for these.

Matt Latham said...

Brilliant Dale and a nice set up there - the 5D II is supposed to be a cracking camera.

Chris said...

Fantastic Dale, Congrats on these ones, they are gorgeous!!

SAPhotographs (Joan) said...

LOL!! We do have occasions to "steal" these things don't we? :)

Why are you so quiet nowdays?

Dale Forbes said...

rofl Joan, re-reading the first paragraph I realize how funny (in a close to home way) i sound talking about rushing out of a minibus and stealing a camera ;-)

why the lack of words. well, I have kinda been busy. but not really. it is more that sometimes everywhere i go i see stuff that i would like to share with my blog friends and so i blog about it (sometimes at length ;-). other times i see stuff that i would like to share - like a very cool metallic green beetle that i wanted to show you yesterday - but i just couldnt be asked to turn the computer on and go through the process of telling the world about the bug on my living room floor. i am not always the best of communicators... sorry.

SAPhotographs (Joan) said...

LOL!! The problem is that I often visualise what people say (write. :)

You are forgiven for not posting and commenting. I just miss you if you are not around. I once wrote a story of a night intruder I found in my bedroom and made it very dramatic. It was actually a katydid on the wall. LOL!!

I suppose for some people communication comes easier than others. My years as a tour guide has left me with always something to say about everything. :)

Dale Forbes said...

a south african game reserve tour guide - the absolute worst of an entire population of people who love to tell stories about beating lions off with a stick and wrestling spitting cobras out of their sleeping bags. I know you are smiling right know, 'cos you know you have a whole pile of these up your sleeve ;-)

Arija said...

Nothing like muscling in on the action to get great shots. I love the background of the steppes in the first few shots.

John Theberge said...

Wow, fantastic flight shots!

Bob Kaufman said...

fantastic shots and handheld even! were you able to get a video as well?

Dale Forbes said...

didn't manage to get any video of the montagues in kazakhstan (but got some in Po Delta shortly thereafter) - that first day I was more focussed on running about grinning like a fool and trying to take digiscoping photos than getting any focus together and actually getting some decent videoscoping shots.

thanks for visiting Bob & Cynthia