Incoming Hawker

[Tim Munsey]

Hi,
Here's another from last year, migrant hawkers ideal for flight photos.

Tim Munsey
D300s, 300mm with 1.7TC, 1/250th at F/13, ISO 220, flash

http://www.wildphotolife.co.uk/Dragons%20and%20Damsels/slides/Migrant%20Hawker%20120909_3.jpg

[Myer Bornstein]

face is sharp, nice capture. If you used a faster shutter speed could you have frozen the wings?

[Allen Sparks]

WOW! What a great in-flight catch! This is amazing to me. Incredible sharpness right where it needs to be - awesome for an in flight shot. I assume you were going for DOF over shutter speed - I like the wing blur but a faster shutter speed probably would have worked too for a different affect. Nice!

[Tim Munsey]

Why freeze the wings? I prefer the feeling of motion.

Thanks for commenting

Tim

[thijs broekkamp]

Wow, very nice! I tried it yesterday, it's pretty hard!

[Julie Kenward]

I agree with you, Tim. I love the sense of motion here. I think it's much harder to have the head frozen and perfectly sharp while maintaining the sense of movement so kudos to you!

I can't tell if there's some noise in the BG (or if my monitor screen is very dirty) but you might run some NR on the BG. Awesome image overall. Was this a big crop?

[Tim Munsey]

Hi Julie, thanks for commenting. Not much of a crop, I put the noise down to lazy processing, guess I should apply
a bit of noise reduction before uploading onto website, the D300s also is no D3 when it comes to noise. One day I hope Nikon will bring out a low megapixel 1.5x crop camera with noise characteristics of the D3/D3s, yummy!

Tim

[Paul Lagasi]

Tim, I've tried to get one of these..I know how tough it is..very well done...

[Ken Childs]

This is fantastic, Tim!
I think the blur of the wings is close to perfection. There's motion there but also enough detail comes through to please us stop motion geeks. :)

[David Stephens]

I particularly like seeing the body through the transparent wing. Very nice and the noise looks minimal to me.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Tim,
Interesting obsevations above.....Is the ISO a typo?...my guess is ISO 200....not 1250......so noise can only be from large crop.....still and easy fix.
I have only one thing to say to those that want frozen wings......think about it......having done this myself.....if you freeze the motion 100%....it will look static....like you had pasted it there! This is just the right amount of wing motion for me.....to give the sense of flight! Excellent job all around!

[Dave Mills]

Hi Tim, remarkable image! The lighting is just right and the front body of the insect is very sharp. The blurred wings show a sense of motion which adds to the image. The backround compliments the subject. If your inclined to I might add a bit of canvas left and right...

[Bob Miller]

Hi Tim.....I am amazed...I shoot dflies and know how hard this is...How did you do it? Want to share your technique for getting such an amazing image and sooo- sharp where it needs to be! Wow!

[Tim Munsey]

The secrets in the species, this particular one likes to hover for periods of up to ten seconds, so still a challenge but by no means impossible.

Tim

[Jonathan Ashton]

Tim - congratulation - a superb image I am very impressed, I love the composition and the colours. I too have been after this species but I have never come up with something so good as this. Sometimes I run the Burn tool set to Shadows and run it over the wings to make the veins a little darker - you may wish to consider this (?):)

[Tim Munsey]

Thanks Jon, I like the idea of darkening the veins, I will explore, not sure how selective the burn tool will be maybe some selective contrast will work.

Tim