These are white-backed vultures I photographed in South Africa. I had to use a long focal length -- a 500mm plus a 1.4x teleconverter giving me 700mm -- because they were perched on a tree quite a distance away. Even with a significant distance, the clouds weren't as sharp as I wanted them to be. Therefore, I replaced the sky in post-processing. My shutter was 1/1250, the aperture f/10 and the ISO 4000. Many photographers use a tripod when using long focal lengths. In the last few years with my focus on birds in flight, I prefer to hand hold the camera simply because of the flexibility of movement. I find tripods inhibiting, and it also takes time to set them up. In a flash, a bird can disappear in the time it takes to think about setting up a tripod.
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