Charles Janson

Camera: Sony ILCE-1

Lens: Sony 400mm G OSS f2.8, with Sony 1.4x teleconverter

Aperture: f4

Shutter speed: 1/2000s

ISO: 500

Description: This group of ostriches was foraging on a hillltop as the sun set. They rarely had all their heads up, so I quickly took a few pictures.

Story from behind the lens: We stayed quite far from the ostriches, as it was clear that they were a bit nervous even when we were more than 100m away. Thus, this group 'portrait' still required a 560mm lens. The trickiest part was getting the camera low enough to get good silhouettes, without getting a lot of grass in the way. Even so, the autofocus often snapped onto grass heads between the car and the birds. We waited for the birds to reach the crest of the hill, where they were outlined best and were least hidden by grass.