Common Nighthawks

[Charlie VanTassel]

Yesterday, from somewhere way south Texas.....

D700
500mm vr
1/5000 @ f/7.1
iso 800

Processed on my laptop with Capture NX....(hope this works)

[Desmond Chan]

Hmmm...the birds look kind of dark on my monitor. Composition-wise I think I would give a bit more room on the left. The birds look pretty sharp though even though they're...dark :)

[Nate Chappell]

Awesome to get 2 sharp in one shot like this Charlie, it looks like you guys are having fun down there. It looks a little dark on my monitor as well.

[Christopher C.M. Cooke]

I agree about getting both in focus, even at f/7.1.

What distance were you from the birds?

[Charlie VanTassel]

Hi all, Thanks for the feedback. I'll have to wait until I get home to a real computer to fix the darkness. Chris, I was about 30 feet away.

[Lance Peters]

Hi - definitely too dark - adjusted levels a little and selectively lightened some area's - now a high key image.
Maybe a little too bright - not on a CC monitor at the moment.

[arash_hazeghi]

Why 1/5000 sec and ISO 800? the original is too dark, repost by Lance is better.

[Simon Bennett]

Wow - well done getting both birds in focus and with such good poses. I prefer the original more subdued sky, although I might try lightening the birds a bit.

[Dan Walker]

Great to get both in frame and in focus, a little + EC would have helped, Good repost Lance. These look like lesser nighthawks with the white so close to the tips of the wings. Love the pose on the male, was he calling?

[Ramon M. Casares]

Repost looks great IMO as the OP looked a bit underexposed, still, the shot itself is very unique as it is not that often that one has the chance to shoot this guys flying and in pairs! Congratulaitons!

[Juan Aragonés]

Fantastic image Charlie, a bit dark but it is easy to fix like Lance did. Very good job with this pair

[Charlie VanTassel]

Hey, thanks folks! Now that I'm home I can see that the original post was too dark. I actually darkened it so that it looked right on my laptop. The original exposure was pretty good. As for why iso 800 and 1/5000.... iso 800 to get the shutter speed up. The sky was a mix of dark and bright clouds and shutter speed on Aperture priority would jump from around 1/2000 to 1/5000 depending on where in the sky the bird was. These guys are fast and the wind was blowing at around 30 mph, so the faster the SS the better. I find that at iso 800 the D700 is not very noisy at all.