Eyes of a Raptor

Picking up from last month’s issue, I have continued using the Sigma 400mm for bird photography. This time I decided to to take a chance photographing raptors. These birds fly high and fast making them a tough subject to track. In this photo session, I used the Sigma 400 on the Fujifilm X-Pro3. I intentionally did this for the additional crop and to fill the frame with as much bird as possible. However, some of these raptor species were probably 2000 to 5000 feet in the air. As if that wasn’t enough of a challenge, they can exceed and sustain speeds of over 100 mph. Most online guides recommend keeping your eyes on the bird as you bring the viewfinder up to your eye. That technique did work well but it was hard to keep steady as I was on a boat.

The Sigma 400 still got me some images I liked but there many out of focus images or some frames that suffered deep chromatic aberration. Although the frame was in focus, the chroma was enough to blur the fine details of the bird. To be fair, I was photographing during high noon and despite having a built-in lens hood the still over powered the lens. I suppose my next test with this lens will include photographing during golden hour. In some of my tests, I found that this lens performs incredibly well in the right lighting conditions. This is a general rule but we are spoiled by modern glass composites that reduce or remove these issues.

Regardless, I can still continue recommending this lens for nature and wildlife photography. I had the opportunity to go out on the Illinois river during a weekend when various bird species migrate into the area from Central and South America. this includes turkey vultures, hawks, bald eagles, and even some pelicans. See the results for yourself below: