Patience is indeed a virtue when photographing nature subjects, and is especially true when waiting for specific events such as photographing osprey catching fish.

This article features a small selection of images captured this summer at Hendrie Valley. All were captured hand-held with a Nikon 1 V3 and a 1 Nikon CX 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 zoom lens. I shot in Manual, using AF-C with subject tracking at either 10 fps or 20 fps, and Auto ISO 160-3200.

NOTE: Click on images to enlarge.

The first selection of 7 photographs are from the same AF-C run and capture an osprey from the time that it hit the water when catching a fish, becoming airborne, and flying off with its prize. This is one of those moments that photographers often hope of capturing, and keeps them coming back day after day.

The following two images are from a different AF-C run. I especially like the lighting in the second image.

Sometimes a complete surprise happens as seen in the image below.

Who would have thought that an osprey fishing in a pond feeding Lake Ontario would capture a large goldfish?

The last two images are of an osprey that flew so close to me that it more than filled the frame of my Nikon 1 V3.

It was one of those moments where all I had time to do was react to the photographic opportunity. I caught the osprey flying by out of the corner of my eye, wheeled around to get my framing, and grabbed a few images.

While I didn’t get a huge volume of images of osprey catching fish this summer, the ones I did manage to get were worth the many hours spent at Hendrie Valley.

Technical Note:
All images were captured hand-held using a Nikon 1 V3 and 1 Nikon CX 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 zoom lens. All photographs in this article were produced from RAW files using my standard process of DxO OpticsPro 11, CS6 and the Nik Collection.

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