Joust

My first foray into blur shots came last weekend on Long Island. We had a skimmer colony passing in front of us in fading light, and every now and again two of them would start fighting in the air. I added a bit of canvas at top left since the original had the left hand bird rather boxed in, and toned down the whites on the same bird's breast. In an absolutely perfect world, his head would be more separate from the rest of his body and his wings, but as I've been told, the more subjects you put in the frame, the closer to a crapshoot everything gets!

I'm very curious to know your thoughts, good or bad.


7D mkII, 100-400 IS II, hand held
1/40 @ f/6.3, ISO 160 (must have not set it all the way down to 100)
DPP conversion, PS optimized

Thanks for looking,
Jake

Good self critique. I like it at lot, especially the screaming lower bird. And I like that you kept it at 3X2.

with love, artie

ps: send me the RAW file :)

The left bird is much more blurred then the right. The frame is balanced very well.

Got the RAW but not sure how :) IAC, here is my take on things. WDYT?

with love, artie

I'd say the sweet spot is somewhere in between the two, now that I'm looking at both yours and mine on the calibrated monitor. Mine is lighter than it should be, without a doubt, and yours is darker than I remember it; the sun wasn't so far down yet to darken everything quite that much. Sky and birds look a touch dark/blue to me. I'll play with the exposure a bit and post a rework. Thanks!

Edited to add: here is the repost. Dropped the curve slightly and did just a touch of work on the brightest whites.

Interesting artistic frame here Jake. I'm not creative enough and always too scared to try something like this. I actually like your second color rendering the best.