Common Tern With Sand Eel

[Jim Fenton]

Not thrilled with the background as there was some sandy areas among the grass, but I like it even in spite of this :)

Nikon D300, 500 AFS~VR, ISO 800, F 5.6, 1/4000, NearUniWB preset, CW metering, EV compensation +.3

The reason for the high ISO was that one minute it was sunny and one minute cloudy...and, as I was shooting these birds really close, the subject to camera flyby speed was pretty darned fast.

I didn't blur the heck out of the background...it was a fair distance behind the bird and it was really windy which helped diffuse it's detail even more.

Comments are always appreciated.

[David Hemmings]

Jim, I quite like the background. Excellent capture with really good details and sharpness.

[Jay Tan]

Nicely exposed and sharp. Background don't bother me.. :)

[Dave Phillips]

another really nice one Jim. The head is nicely framed by the rt wing.
The wings being forward and down, it's is almost like a protective behavior....the little fish ain't leaving
or getting stolen.....I'm protecting it

very nice sir

[Doug Brown]

Boy Jim, you're your own worst critic. It's a very nice photo. Like the head and eel silhouetted against the wing. BG works well for me. Nice job!

[Arthur Morris]

I am not a big fan of this wing position but it is acceptable here with the head position which is almost perfectly framed by the far wing... The sand eel is cool but the bird's head is angled slightly away from you.I think that a crop from the bottom would work well.