Flip And Catch...

Dottie and I went to Ft. Desoto early this morning. I spent most of my time attempting to photograph terns fishing. A humbling experience, showing how out of practice I have become over the summer. I did capture this Royal Tern flipping and catching a fish it had caught. Comments and critique welcomed and appreciated. Thank you for viewing.

Nikon D500
Nikon 80-400mm F/4.5-5.6 VRII AF-S ED, image captured at 400mm
1/3200 F/5.6 Matrix Metering EV 0 ISO 640 Auto 1 WB HH
Post processed in Lightroom Classic, Photoshop CC 2019 and Neat Image for noise reduction
Cropped for composition and presentation

Joe, One of my favorite things to shoot when it comes to terns, nice angle and light, maybe a bit tighter crop if you have the pixels. Love that action.

-Tim

Looks excellent Joe.
I would clone out the little 2 blobs below the tip of second primary.
I would also lower the bird in the frame so more room on top and less on the bottom.
Gail

This is an edit and repost of the original image. This morning I thought I had done too much to remove the shadows present in the master file. I think this is more true to how the light was yesterday morning at Ft. Desoto and the angle to the light hitting the bird. What do you think?

P.S. I left the dark spots than Gail mentioned in the image because as near as I can determine they are fish scales and part of the natural history. Thanks to anyone who views this image.

Well Jo the first thing I would say is you are back in practice! I liked the first but I see why you reconsidered, I personally would have readily accepted the first but I do think I prefer the second. Well done that is one to be proud of!

Nice Capture. You caught the perfect moment.

I like the original instead of repost.

TFS

I like the repost better :). But the original post is also very nice. Just brighter overall. Not bad for out of practice ...

a

Very nice. Love the action and the light look nice as well. Like the original more than the repost.