Tern Lunch

[Ken Janes]

There is a small colony of Least Terns near my home on the coast of Maine. I was lucky enough to witness the mating behavior this May and got this shot.

Canon 7D 400mm f 5.6
1/200 f/ 8.0 ISO 400

[Gordon McKechnie]

Hi Ken
I really like the action in this, and the relative position of the two birds with the fish between them works very well for me. Is this quite a large crop, as there seems to be quite a lot of noise, more than I'd normally expect at ISO 400 on a 7D? Perhaps a bit of noise reduction in post processing will help. The birds faces could also be a bit sharper.
Gordon

[carole wiley]

Ken,
I agree, this looks a bit soft all over and like it was a large crop. I also see hotspots on the ckeeks and the fish. I like the pose and crop and you did a good job getting the eyes to show.

[Ken Janes]

I agree completely. This was a large crop and since this was one of the first days i had used the lens I did not realize that it was front focusing. I have calibrated the camera/lens and it seems better. This is another from the same day with better focus but not as nice a pose. Thanks for your comments.

[Sid Garige]

Ken,

Nice interaction very well captured. Well composed image too.

1/200 f/ 8.0 ISO 400
Regarding settings, it is always good practice to maintain good shutter speed when photographing birds in action. From your setting I see you shutter speed was 1/200 and ISO at 400. 7D is capable of producing very nice images even at ISO 800 and I would have kicked up my ISO to 800 for better shutter speed. Image in pane #4 is also very nice.

[Kerry Perkins]

Hi Ken, welcome to BPN! Welcome also to the 7D400 club, we have a good number of posters here with that setup including me. :c3:

I like both images also, the closer crop of the first one looks nicer to me but the noise is higher. Very good point made by Sid and I am wondering if 1/200 is a typo? I think I would be shooting at more like 1/2000 at f/8@ISO400 in direct sun and white birds - or was the sky overcast? I see pretty distinct shadows...

[Ken Janes]

It was a typo and I was shooting at 2000. I had the 400 on a tripod yet still have problems with soft focus. I understand there have been some problems with the auto-focus with the 7D.

[Svante Larsson]

I prefer the second post since the first one seems really noisy and soft. Noone has mentioned it but isn't there also a fairly strong cyan cast in both images. If I do a simple white balancing in LR3 the image looks like below.

[Ken Janes]

Thank you so much about the color cast tip. That was a big help.