Royal Tern

[Isaac Grant]

Photographed this Royal Tern 2 Sunday evening very close to sunset. From Midland Beach in Staten Island, New York. Every year in late October we get a large build up of these birds. Typically they are gone by early November. Evenings are the best time to try and photograph them because of the sun angle. Problem is that there are more people out on the beach at that time walking their dogs or just going for a stroll. These birds congregate on the least trafficked section of the beach. So I waited a bit away from the birds for them to be flushed by someone and hoped they would come to me. Thankfully the plan worked well. This shot is one of a flock that came in and landed very close to me.

Canon 7d ii and Canon 500 f4 ii. f5, ISO 400, SS 1/4000, -1/3. Hand held. Full frame plus I added a tiny bit to the bottom in PS as the bottom was just a little too tight. Hand held.

Converted in DPP 4. Auto white balance. In PS I added canvas to bottom, also took a little away from the right and added it to the left. Sharpened and applied noise reduction to background. Also cloned out a little beach debris and the beak of another tern that was on the far left of the screen.

[Jim Crosswell]

I like the IQ, incoming pose, HA, light, layered FG/BG and composition. Very well done Isaac!

[Geoff Newhouse]

Great light and wing position. The stark stripes of the background colours distract from the subject a little bit but no big deal. Great work.

TFS
Geoff

[Adhika Lie]

Such a beautiful light. I agree with Geoff regarding the BG but there is probably not much you can do about that. The near wing position is so good!

[Satish Ranadive]

Very sweet image in wonderful lights. Love the way bird pops up against beautiful BG.
Superb wing stretch and very nice HA.
Great whites.

Regards,
Satish.

[William Dickson]

Fabulous lighting, and a great capture. I like the comp and beautiful colours throughout the image. Well done Isaac, one of the best I have seen from your images.

Will

[gail bisson]

Excellent fieldcraft!
Great light and the whites are perfect.
The tricolored BG is unusual and I would be tempted to desaturate the blues a bit,
Gail

[Isaac Grant]

Thanks all. Gail, the background is interesting and one of the reasons I posted this shot. There are 2 small islands off of Staten Island, what you see above the water is that small island. There is nothing on the island but some trees and pilings. It is used by tons of cormorants and herons as a rookery. Where the birds were on the beach and to keep the sun at my back I had to shoot towards that island. I have mixed emotions about it and thought of cloning it out but decided it actually gave a kind of unique look so I decided to keep it. But I can totally see why others find it less than ideal. As to the water, this is an issue I have mentioned many times and really struggle with. I shoot almost exclusively in early morning or late evening light. Go out at those times to get that perfect soft and warm light. Of course it often over saturates the image. So the dilemma is do you intentionally shoot in that light but then tone down the image so it does not look like that or what? Kind of defeats the purpose a bit for me. I had this at f5 and the bird landed quite close. Shot is full frame so I got a real nice background blur that conveyed the brilliant late evening light. While processing it I left it as it was, but am never really sure what to do about that. I'd love to hear yours or others opinions about that. Same goes for the birds. In this case I did not touch the whites at all. Got them right in the field. Only lowered the highlights in DPP to -2. In PS I ran a NIK Detail extractor (50% opacity) and Tonal Contrast (25% opacity) filter and then sharpened. I left that beautiful warm light on the bird and thought it may look too artificial if I toned the background down so it didn't match the bird. Just explaining my thought process but am very eager to learn how others handle these situations.