Shoveler in flight

[Don Kates]

1d III, 600 f/4, ISO 200, handheld. Love these birds.

[Mike Lentz]

Nice timing getting him with the wings down and right out in front of you. I might be inclined to take a small amount of the top of the image. :)

[Al Lemieux]

That is really nice. What shutter speed? I see a lot of in-flight pictures on this forum. How do you manage a hand held in flight shot?

[Jim Poor]

That is really nice. What shutter speed? I see a lot of in-flight pictures on this forum. How do you manage a hand held in flight shot?


For me personally, hand-holding is much easier for flight shots as I am more free to move and track the bird. Hand-holding a 600mm, however, comma, pause for effect . . . is another story all together. Don must have arms the size of my torso :D

[Nikolay Staykov - shotlandetsa]

you are tuff guy :)
I like the image very much.

[Ed Miller]

Nicely done Don! Love the wing position. On my monitor it looks like the critical focus is on the near wing.

[Fabs Forns]

Nicely done Don! Love the wing position. On my monitor it looks like the critical focus is on the near wing.

That happens very often in high contrast wings. They seem to be AF magnets.

You could duplicate the layer apply a small amount of Gaussian blur, the clean the rest of the image.

A small tutorial on this technique can be found as a Sticky in the Digital Workflow Forum.

[Jody Melanson]

Wonderful image Don, I get a real sense of motion on this. My only nit would be the plumage, but not much you can do about that! :D