I stopped by the McElHatten bridge over the West Branch of the Susquehanna River, near Woolrich, PA this afternoon, to attempt to get photos of the Peregrine Falcon I had seen perched near the bridge yesterday (11/26/11). I did manage to get some photos from the bridge, of the bird perched and flying from 150 to 200 yds distant. I used my Nikon D200 camera with a Nikon 300 mm f4 AF-D lens and an SB-28 flash on full-power, and concentrated flash output onto the subject using a Lumiquest Snoop flash extender. All images with flash were shot at 1/250 sec. I used the bridge railing to help steady the camera for the perched bird. I simply hand-held and panned the camera while firing, as the falcon flew. Lithium AA batteries powered the flash: I prefer them over rechargeables: better power output, and faster power recycling I think. Images of the bird were highly cropped from 10 MP file.

The series of 5 images, close up of a perched Peregrine, were photographed along the north bank of the river, near the same bridge, on August 6, 2008 between 7:30 and 8:30pm, while wading in the river to get a vantage point. The bird was photographed with a Nikon D200 DSLR, Nikon 300mm f4 lens (hand-held) and an SB-28 speedlight set on manual mode. NOTE: Though I used the built-in flash head diffuser and bounced light with the built-in bounce card, some photos had terrible red-eye; as if I were photographing a mammal at night.