Thirsty tern

[Bill Dix]

D90; 80-400 VR @ 370mm. ISO 400. f/7.1, 1/3200s. -0.7 EV. HH.

When I first stopped to photograph the terns, the water was mirror-smooth; but by the time this Common Tern came in low for a drink, a light breeze had kicked up. Harsh overhead light and large crop make it three strikes against me. Still, I thought I'd post it for comment. One of these days I'll get to Brigantine early in the morning.

[Fabs Forns]

Very nice pose, shame on the harsh light. YOu could straighten this if you wanted, based on the line in the water.

[Lance Peters]

Hi Bill - love the pose and the water drops from the bill - as mentioned shame about the harsh light - also looks a little detail less in some areas -tough bird in aything but soft light.
Id straighten if it were mine.
TFS

[Bill Dix]

Thanks Fabs and Lance. I'm not sure I'm with you on the straightening. I did straighten just a bit before posting, based on aligning the wingtips vertically with their respective reflections, and the same with the orange at the base of the bill with its reflection. Are you looking at some other alignment that I'm missing?

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Bill I do think its tilted? ... I'm going more with the lines in the water.

Did great with the harsh light being able to have a clearly recognizable eye !! Can all would desaturate a bit and crop top and bottom for more of a pano, will enhance implied forward motion !! Neat capture !!

[Oscar Zangroniz]

Great capture Bill, like the reflection and the water drops.

[WIlliam Maroldo]

I thought I might add a few things. 1) There is a big problem with straightening it out, and that is the angle of the reflection would be WRONG, and Bill is exactly correct with his technique for aligning 2) High contrast directly overhead light is usually an image killer, but there is an exception for birds over water (or even white sand), but it requires a slight deviation from the sun being directly overhead. The water under the subject can reflect light back up, and did to a certain extent here, or under the bird would be much darker. This light isn't especially good, because it is still high contrast, and often shows bright wavy highlights, but if the surface is smooth enough I can create a successful image. Unfortunately here the tern was probably too close to surface, the water was a bit too rough, or the sun was exactly overhead. My 2 cents. regards~Bill

[Fabs Forns]

This is what I meant. I don't see any problem with the angle of the reflection, especially given that the sun is straight overhead.

[Dave Mills]

Hi.agree with exposure comments above. Maybe I'm missing something but I don't see a problem with Fab's repost. Everything appears to be in the same location except the bird is going straighter. I also was looking at bird and the line in the water in the original...

[Bill Dix]

Thank you all for the interesting discussion. For all the problems with the image, I didn't think alignment was one of them. I believe the lines in the water are related to the direction of the breeze and have nothing to do with the horizon line. The technique of aligning the subject vertically with its reflection is correct (although here the subject and the reflection are so close together - and less than perfectly sharp - that there's a wide margin for error). That said, if so many of you felt it looked crooked, there must be a perception that it needs straightening, and perception in our work is important. As an example, I have images of shorebirds taken at a slight angle to the shoreline, thus the shoreline is at a slight angle to the horizon. If I crop to eliminate the horizon line, the image looks crooked even if it isn't really, and I have been known to rotate it slightly to make the waterline horizontal, to fix the "perception" of slant. Maybe this is another case.