{"id":6160,"date":"2012-09-22T08:46:49","date_gmt":"2012-09-22T14:46:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/?p=6160"},"modified":"2024-12-21T06:38:07","modified_gmt":"2024-12-21T12:38:07","slug":"low-light-juvenile-prairie-falcon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2012\/09\/22\/low-light-juvenile-prairie-falcon\/","title":{"rendered":"Low Light Juvenile Prairie Falcon"},"content":{"rendered":"

The cooler weather we are having in Utah has me thinking of frosty mornings, snow, crystal clear skies, low light and the foggy mornings that the Great Salt Lake can create. After having lived in Florida for five years I don’t take those weather conditions for granted, I revel in them.<\/p>\n

\"YoungPortrait of a juvenile Prairie Falcon in low light – Nikon D300, f5.6, 1\/1600, ISO 800, +0.7 EV, Nikkor 200-400mm VR with 1.4x TC at 400mm, natural light, not baited or set up<\/span><\/p>\n

One foggy morning last December I spotted this juvenile Prairie Falcon (Falco mexicanus<\/em>) perched on a frost-covered rock on the causeway to Antelope Island State Park<\/span><\/a> with the Great Salt Lake in the background. There was some fog and the light was low but with the right settings I was able to get a sharp image without noise. \u00a0My exposure compensation for this image was very important, I increased the exposure so that I would not have to brighten the image in post processing which can often introduce unwanted noise. I also used f5.6 knowing I wouldn’t get the grasses in the foreground sharp but I felt I needed to make a compromise to keep my shutter speed up in case the young falcon decided to lift off.<\/p>\n

I know that I could have increased the saturation and contrast while I was processing this image in Photoshop to give it what some people call more “pop” but I would much rather process my images to appear natural rather than oversaturated, over-processed and artificial. This image is what it is<\/em><\/span>, a photo of this bird taken in low light.<\/p>\n

\"PrairieImmature Prairie Falcon in low light – Nikon D300, f7.1, 1\/500, ISO 500, Nikkor 200-400mm VR with 1.4x TC at 271mm, natural light, not baited or set up<\/span><\/p>\n

This is the same\u00a0immature bird\u00a0a little later after it had flown to the other side of the road. Because the Prairie Falcon seemed “stickier” I wanted some images where the foreground boulder was in focus so I selected f7.1 which gave me sufficient depth of field to bring the boulder into focus as well as the bird. I decreased my ISO to bring out more fine details in the plumage and the perch and while that slowed down my shutter speed but at the time I felt that the falcon was comfortable with my presence and wouldn’t fly off right away. I could see on my histogram that I didn’t need to increase or decrease my exposure compensation to acquire a well exposed image so I set it at 0.0.<\/p>\n

For myself; I feel it is important to process and present my images to represent the lighting conditions, colors and contrast as close as possible to what I saw through my viewfinder, other wise it simply does not look or feel natural to me.<\/p>\n

Neither of these images “pop” off the screen. Given that they were created in low light I don’t expect them to.<\/p>\n

Life is<\/em> good.<\/p>\n

Mia<\/p>\n

Click here<\/a><\/span> to see more of my Prairie Falcon photos plus facts and information about this species.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One foggy morning last December I spotted this juvenile Prairie Falcon (Falco mexicanus) perched on a frost-covered rock on the causeway to Antelope Island SP with the Great Salt Lake in the background. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":138022,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[511,27,1022,1095,26],"tags":[2663,4278,4078,4279,4067,4071,4421,156,4277,153],"class_list":["post-6160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island-state-park","category-avian","category-davis-county-utah","category-prairie-falcons","category-utah","tag-birds-of-prey","tag-falco-mexicanus","tag-falcon","tag-falcons","tag-immature","tag-juvenile","tag-lake-fog","tag-low-light-2","tag-prairie-falcons","tag-raptors"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/prairie-falcon-juvenile-mia-mcpherson-7323.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p11Mom-1Bm","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3842,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2011\/12\/16\/friday-photos-prairie-falcon\/","url_meta":{"origin":6160,"position":0},"title":"Friday Photos ~ Prairie Falcon","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"December 16, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Many of my regular readers probably know that I have been having a great time the past month photographing Rough-legged Hawks and Prairie Falcons so I selected an image of a Prairie Falcon to post for my Friday Photos today.","rel":"","context":"In "Antelope Island State Park"","block_context":{"text":"Antelope Island State Park","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/locations\/utah\/antelope-island-state-park\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Prairie Falcon in early morning light, Antelope Island State Park, Davis County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/prairie-falcon-mia-mcpherson-5355.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/prairie-falcon-mia-mcpherson-5355.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/prairie-falcon-mia-mcpherson-5355.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3705,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2011\/11\/17\/prairie-falcon-eureka-again\/","url_meta":{"origin":6160,"position":1},"title":"Prairie Falcon – Eureka Again!","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"November 17, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Wow, two nemesis birds photographed in a week, this Prairie Falcon was amazing. I'll be grinning (and dancing) about this for quite awhile!","rel":"","context":"In "Antelope Island State Park"","block_context":{"text":"Antelope Island State Park","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/locations\/utah\/antelope-island-state-park\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Young Prairie Falcon getting ready for lift off, Antelope Island State Park, Davis County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/prairie-falcon-1st-year-mia-mcpherson-9922.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/prairie-falcon-1st-year-mia-mcpherson-9922.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/prairie-falcon-1st-year-mia-mcpherson-9922.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/prairie-falcon-1st-year-mia-mcpherson-9922.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":14926,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2014\/05\/10\/a-first-year-prairie-falcon\/","url_meta":{"origin":6160,"position":2},"title":"First year Prairie Falcon","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"May 10, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"In the fall of 2011 I enjoyed being able to photograph this first year Prairie Falcon several times close to the Great Salt Lake in Utah.","rel":"","context":"In "Antelope Island State Park"","block_context":{"text":"Antelope Island State Park","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/locations\/utah\/antelope-island-state-park\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Early morning Prairie Falcon, Antelope Island State Park, Davis County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/prairie-falcon-juvenile-mia-mcpherson-9910.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/prairie-falcon-juvenile-mia-mcpherson-9910.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/prairie-falcon-juvenile-mia-mcpherson-9910.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4599,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2012\/03\/06\/prairie-falcon-the-fun-keeps-going\/","url_meta":{"origin":6160,"position":3},"title":"Prairie Falcon ~ The Fun Keeps Going","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"March 6, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I have had an amazing time photographing Prairie Falcons (Falco mexicanus) since last fall. Since the ducks are no longer near the causeway to Antelope Island I have had a more difficult time locating them because they are now searching for their normal winter diet of Western Meadowlarks and Horned\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Antelope Island State Park"","block_context":{"text":"Antelope Island State Park","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/locations\/utah\/antelope-island-state-park\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Prairie Falcon lift off #1, Antelope Island State Park in Davis County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/prairie-falcon-lift-off-mia-mcpherson-6716.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/prairie-falcon-lift-off-mia-mcpherson-6716.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/prairie-falcon-lift-off-mia-mcpherson-6716.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/prairie-falcon-lift-off-mia-mcpherson-6716.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":43364,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2016\/12\/06\/immature-prairie-falcon-at-sunrise-next-to-the-great-salt-lake\/","url_meta":{"origin":6160,"position":4},"title":"Immature Prairie Falcon At Sunrise Next To The Great Salt Lake","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"December 6, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"The bird that started my day was an immature Prairie Falcon at sunrise next to the Great Salt Lake and as the sun started to rise the falcon seemed to glow.","rel":"","context":"In "Antelope Island State Park"","block_context":{"text":"Antelope Island State 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2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":42008,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2016\/09\/18\/centennial-valley-prairie-falcon-and-a-short-eared-owl-barbed-wire-casualty\/","url_meta":{"origin":6160,"position":5},"title":"Centennial Valley Prairie Falcon and a Short-eared Owl Barbed Wire Casualty","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"September 18, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I spent some time in the Centennial Valley of Montana yesterday and the best bird I spotted was this adult Prairie Falcon photographed on a cattle chute with a white cloud in the background.","rel":"","context":"In "Beaverhead County"","block_context":{"text":"Beaverhead County","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/locations\/montana\/beaverhead-county-montana\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Prairie Falcon with a white cloud in the background, Centennial Valley, Beaverhead County, 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