It took a little while of waiting around to capture the instant of launching into flight. I wanted to stop the motion, so I used a fast shutter speed (1/1600 sec) … in order to keep decent depth of field at f/8, I had to increase the ISO to 200. The pro’s say that I’m getting diffraction effects at any aperture over f/6.3, but I think the diffraction softening is less noticeable than any additional lack of focus on the wing feathers would be.
Camera: Nikon D850 Lens: Nikkor 80-400mm set at 400mm ISO 200 1/1600 sec f/8.0