Love the image, the bright birds and the rock, shear drop. When taking this in landscape mode, if you include more rock to the right, it is easy to add black sky to the left, not so easy when it is a definite object like a rock, you could also zoom out a bit. Then you can get a different final crop. As long as you keep your SS at least 2X but preferably more than the focal length, you should be able to nail portrait mode images. I used to do that with the 600 f/4 hand held. Fast shutter speeds and a lot of consecutive images. Even if your lens wonder all over the place, you are bound to get a keeper or more when shooting like this. This allows you to do it sans monopod. One of the reasons I sold my 600 f/4 for the 500 PF was just that - weight and mobility. I can carry it around for hours, and it is never a schlep. (The 600 f/4 is way up there in quality etc, I do not deny it, but for my way of shooting I swaped to the lighter lens. When I got rid of the 200-400 f/4, I also opted for the 80-400 rather than the 200-500 for the same reason and because of the 80 - 200 extra zoom that saves the day, especially with larger critters.