To His Royal Highness (Tern Action)

[Andy Nguyen]

I think this is a unique perspective. From this angle, it looks like the Royal Tern is presenting a gift to the King (the operative word here is "Royal")

This is one of the more interesting shots from my year-long work in progress of capturing tern behaviors while in flight. C&C much appreciated. Positive comments are always welcomed, but I'm particularly interested in hearing the negatives. Also, an initial emotional response (if any) would be nice. Thank you for playing.

Sincerely,
Andy Nguyen
http://www.ndshow.com (http://www.ndshow.com/)

http://www.ndshow.com/FTP/BPN/royaltern.jpg

D300, 300f4, JPEG Fine, ISO200, 1/4000s, f8, Matrix metering, center weight 6mm, EV -1/3, 51 point AF, PP includes cropping, leveling, and some slight sharpening.

[Bill Jobes]

I love the wings and feathers in a most unusual display.
You captured a great moment, just after the grab in the water, as evidenced by the spraying droplets. You can even see the impact geyser still falling to the left of the bird. And I love the fish eye !
Crop and comp both excellent.
The image for my personal taste appears a tad dark. Along those lines, is there any detail to be recovered in the blacks of the tern's head?
Overall, you've presented a wonderful and dramatic action image.

[Andy Nguyen]

I love the wings and feathers in a most unusual display.
You captured a great moment, just after the grab in the water, as evidenced by the spraying droplets. You can even see the impact geyser still falling to the left of the bird. And I love the fish eye !
Crop and comp both excellent.
The image for my personal taste appears a tad dark. Along those lines, is there any detail to be recovered in the blacks of the tern's head?
Overall, you've presented a wonderful and dramatic action image.

Bill, thank you so much for the detailed comment. I do agree that it might be a bit dark. I was trying to expose the whites correctly, unfortunately that lost some detail in the shadows. I have tried to recover in the black area on the tern's head, but to no avail.

Andy

[Morkel Erasmus]

that's got to be the best in-flight shot of a tern I've seen. superb! agree on the blacks, but overall this image is right up there...would maybe have left a tad more space to the right and bottom but that's personal taste.

[Kiran Poonacha]

Oh brillient Image.. loved the angle, great action captured... congrats..

[Sinh Nhut Nguyen]

Hello Anh Andy, Very nice shot, dramatic too. I like the moment you have captured here, normally this happens too quickly for our eyes to see it. The wings and tail are spectacular in this picture, I especially like the tail feathers lifting upward. I think the tern is presenting the present to the photographer :)

[Stu Bowie]

Brilliant headon flight posture. That tail is amazing. This is sharp, but I feel the whites are too grey, and the BG water too dark. Im sure with a bit of TLC you can make this pop even more.

[arash_hazeghi]

Excellent timing and perfect detail in such a difficult shot, thanks for posting!

[Arthur Morris]

First off, an amazing capture; great times, SH, and pose. Secondly, Mr. Jobes nailed the critique. For the repost, I just dragged the middle of the Curve up. Now here's the strangest thing of all. Even in the dark version, the original post, there are some hot white pixels.

For an image this good, I would recommend starting over after reading the new ACR tutorial in ER. It should be required reading for all who post here :) :D :)

[Arthur Morris]

ps: Bigger would be better!

[Bill Jobes]

Beautiful repost, Artie! Now that one really jumps ! :D

What a great tribute to Andy's spectacular image!

[Ramon M. Casares]

I agree with comments above, but overall, loved the action and pose! Congratulations!

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Nothing to add. All's been said. Great capture! Thanks for sharing.

[Andy Nguyen]

Thank you, friends. I am very appreciative of your compliments, as well as your criticisms.

Arthur: Wow, thanks so much for taking the time. I will definitely check out the tutorial you referred to, and hopefully the rework will be more desirable. If it's OK, I'll repost the new, larger version here when it's done?

Andy

[Arthur Morris]

Hi Andy, I for one would love to see a larger repost. And it would be OK. Think of the critiques as suggestions for improvements rather than criticisms <smile>

[Andy Nguyen]

I went back to the original file, followed the ACR tutorial and made a few alternative adjustments of my own, here's the repost. Thank you for your guiding and suggestions.

http://www.ndshow.com/FTP/BPN/royaltern_repost.jpg

[Arthur Morris]

Hi Andy, You got the size right and the repost is lighter than the original post and that is good. The problem is that there is still more than a smattering of hot pixels in the repost. Did you make sure that there were no red warning during the ACR conversion? Did you move the EXP slider a bit to the left to pull the histogram a bit away from the Highlight axis?

If yes to both of those questions, they you are doing something wrong after that.... Let me know and I will continue to try and help.

[Andy Nguyen]

Arthur, I just checked. There were some scattered blue dots, and 4 or 5 tiny red dots. I fixed them using the S command. Thank you. :)
Andy

[Arthur Morris]

Whatis the S command and where do you find it?

[Andy Nguyen]

Whatis the S command and where do you find it?

Arthur, I use shortcuts in Photoshop and other software, whenever possible. The S command is for the Clone tool.

[Arthur Morris]

Ah, that is being a sneaky Pete. You will be much better off in the long run learning to convert the images without a single over-exposed pixel....