Near the end of a day out in Suffolk, in the late afternoon sun, a Great Spotted Woodpecker flew over our heads and landed near the top of a nearby tree.
Happy with it's selection it appeared to give the tree a hug.
It then shuffled up a few inches and hugged it again.
After about a minute of contemplation it flew off.
We followed this encounter with a walk along the Little Ouse in the hope of seeing Otters at dusk as we had done about a year ago.
No luck this time but what we did see in the post sunset gloom was a bird silently swoop into the tree in front of us and land, fortunately I already had the camera set for very low light and managed one good image before it flew off.
Until I got home and tweaked the RAW file on the computer I didn't know what we'd seen, a Sparrow Hawk it turns out.
The camera settings were f 6.3 at 1/80 sec and ISO 25600 at 400ml (800ml equivalent on Micro 4/3) and the results were much better than I expected considering the lack of light and a very good test of my new camera's capabilities.
Best Wishes,
Trevor
(Pardon the Scottish Accent)
Lot to learn
Love the Sparrowhawk Trevor. Wonderful quality at such a high ISO ...
Hi Billysdad,
Many thanks. Modern noise reduction software has opened up so many more opportunities for low light photography now. I would have put my camera away at that light level in the past.