Guillemots

[Jonathan Ashton]

Hand held Canon 1DX Canon 100-400L IS Auto ISO 400 1/1000 sec f7.1
All C&C welcome

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Love the raised foot and the overall dynamics mate. Well done.
I'd probably crop even tighter.
Great work! :S3:

[gail bisson]

Excellent exposure on the whites and blacks with good details in both.
Nice interaction shown. Is this a parent feeding a young or a mating ritual? Where?
I might be tempted to smooth out the whitish circle below the birds right wing.
I could see a version with a square crop.
I am wondering why you were on auto ISO- something I have never used. Would be interested in your thoughts.
Gail

[Norm Dulak]

Another nice one Jon, well exposed and composed. And the interaction between the birds is of first rate interest. Well done!

[Marina Scarr]

Super subjects and interaction. I am also curious about where this was taken. I took this image into PS and found 2 crops that I prefer to this one. One was simply with some off of the bottom. The other was some off of the bottom and a little bit off of the right. I don't shoot with auto ISO either, but if I had a 1Dx I might be tempted to use it.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Hi Gail, it was early breeding season so it is indeed a mating ritual. The location is the Farne Islands which are located in NE England.
I use Auto ISO most of the time since I had the 1DX, I adopt the attitude that if I want a certain shutter speed or aperture for a given subject and if the ISO is not ridiculously high I just go for the image. A sharp image slightly noisier than a fine image which is soft is better in my book. I shoot to the right and process in DPP, I have modified the custom function in camera so that I can over or underexpose as required so in reality it is not much different to any other mode but I do not have to worry about shutter speed/aperture combinations as a result of exposure changes. I know Manual v AV or Tv has been debated at length previously each mode has advantages, it all becomes a circular argument in the end.
For the image above I decided I would need about 1/1000 sec to ensure action was stopped and at that magnification I reckoned somewhere around 7.1 would give adequate DOF, I don't think I would notice any significant difference if the ISO had turned out to be ISO 250 or 640 or 800. On this particular day my ISO ranged from ISO 100 to ISO 10,000. I attach an image that was ISO 10,000, it isn't ideal from an aesthetic point of view but I think it illustrates my point about not worrying too much about the ISO setting.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Marina I played around with the crop I appreciate your suggestions, the reason I originally went for this crop/shape was that I wanted to emphasise the one on the right reacting to the one on the left.

[stuart wanuck]

Pretty cool love the interaction

[Bill Dix]

Great interaction and poses, especially with the wing flap and raised foot. Very nicely exposed with detail in the whites, and the heads and necks almost velvety. Maybe just a tad off the bottom?

[Jim Crosswell]

I like the interaction, raised foot, exposure, setting and BG. Excellent image Jonathan!