Mallards in Flight

[Matthew Pimm]

Canon 7D, 300mm F4 IS L, 1.4 TC, ISO 800, 1/1250, F9.

I wasn't after these guys but saw them taking flight and swivelled around on my tripod to catch this photo. The exposure was under so I had to open it up in RAW conversion which has hurt the quality of the image but I thought the pose of the birds redeems a lot of the technical faults.

Question - is it OK to have a compromise focus on the ducks who are on separate focus planes? Now they are equally in focus at the expense of absolute sharpness.

Or is it better if one were tack sharp and the other even softer than it is now? Assuming I could focus that well!

Matthew

[John Chardine]

Hi Matthew- Big welcome to BPN. You really did well to capture this action, which I know all happens really quickly. I like the differing wing position of both birds. To answer you focus question, at least one bird should be in sharp focus and that is almost always the bird in front, which here I guess would be the male. The under-exposure was likely due to you having set your exposure mode to Av or Tv- with the BG dominated by snow, your 7D will reduce the exposure. It's best in these situations to set your mode to manual, set the exposure for your subject and always be ready!

[pat lillich]

hey Matthew! love the postions of these birds! they are so fast, its really hard to catch them as clearly as you have. Look forward to seeing your next post.

[Ben_Sadd]

The positions are nice here, but as you note yourself, the exposure is a problem. I would especially like to see more detail in the male's head.

Welcome by the way.

[Svante Larsson]

Agree with Bens and Johns comments with an interesting position, exposure problem and detail in the male head. I also would blur the background a bit.