This image was created on the third afternoon of the Spoonbill Boat IPT. I used the hand held Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 500mm f/5.6E PF ED VR lens, the Nikon AF-S Teleconverter TC-14E III, and my souped up Nikon D850. ISO 800. Matrix metering plus 1/3 stop off the sky: 1/2500 sec. at f/8 was more than a stop under-exposed. (Even though the skies were clear, it was late in the day; the light was very soft and, in addition, it was a bit hazy.) NATURAL AUTO WB at 5:27pm on a clear afternoon.Nikon Focus Peaking fine-tune value: 0. See the Nikon AF Fine-tune e-Guide here.Center Group (grp)/Continuous (C in Nikon/AI Servo with Canon) AF was active at the moment of exposure. The array was centered on the bird’s face; good on me. This image is perfectly sharp on the eye.
The posted image is full frame. All that I did in PS was to selectively sharpen the face with a contrast mask.
Learn more about the creation of this image in the Flight Poses and Wings Positions: Part I of Many. And a killer forward-facing/turning left flight image made with the 500 PF/TC-E14/D850 Rig blog post here.
with love, artie


