AFter my trip to Gilfach, I and some friends meet up at Gigrin farm. The weather did not look great and in fact only got more cloudy and darker as the red kite feeding time drew nearer and just sadly continued to get worse as they were fed. However having a camera with good High ISO noise performance (Pentax K-5) and a faster lens (DA*300mm F4) I managed to get few nice shots, though grey sky is not fantastic in most shots, I got nice background on one diving, showing off the red kites best angle, its back.
The above and below were all taken at ISO3200 and have had some PP noise reduction applied but cleaned up nicely.
As you can imagine with moving subjects in poor light many were deleted. I did manage the rare sight of a red kite on the ground.
It didn’t look entirely healthy to me to be honest but was feeding well.
The sight of 100+ kites in the air is hard to capture well but here is my attempt.
As the light got even worse towards the end I took a few at ISO6400 but only one came out.
A great series of shots Neil and a wonderful sight I’m sure. Number 4. is similar to one I got at Watlington , up the M40, but I agree, the shot from above is better and more unusual. K5 drifting towards my price range although my K-r ‘s not too far behind on the high ISO 😉
Dave
Nice pics Neil. I’m impressed by the lack of noise at such high ISOs even with pp handling. Got a great red kite feeding station not far from where I live too. Keep up the good work. Tom
Lovely action shaots Neil.
Cheers David