Laughing at Me?

We encountered the extremely beautiful Swalllow-tailed Gull on several islands, but our best chances were on Hood/Espanola. Time after time I had one of them teed up on a rock with a great Pacific ocean BKGR but each time they would fly away the instant that I started to focus. It got to be almost comical... I finally got two decent frames of this bird as it was displaying.

They are strictly nocturnal feeders thus the relatively huge eyes.

Canon 400mm f/4 IS DO lens with the EOS-40D on the Mongoose M3.5/Gitzo 3530 LS combo. ISO 400. Evaluative metering =1 1/3 stops: 1/1600 sec. at f/5.

Don't be shy. All comments welcome.

I love the expression and the sharp detail of this beautiful gull. The orange in the eye ring and area around the bill is fabulous.

I don't mind the out of focus rock on the right but the one on the left is a bit distracting.

Neat looking bird. The bird being centered might bring some rule of thirds comments but it is framed nicely with the oof rocks in the bkg, so bending the rule here works for me. Todd

As I moved into position, my main concern was avoiding a merge of the bird with either of the rocks. I approached from the right and as soon as I had the bird centered between the rocks I got the tripod on the ground as he started to display. I made this image ASAP and he had turned away before I made the second image and then he flew. I cropped from the right (see below). As presented above there is more room between the tail and the frame edge and the bill tip and the frame edge so though the bird is relatively in the center of the frame it is not exactly centered. In nearly all cases, the rule of thirds cannot be applied to large in the frame birds like this.

I would have to agree with Gayle on the oof background. But I'm sure you were trying your best to make the most of what you had. the clarity of the wing and neck is very nicely captured. I like the eye as well. The tongue outstretched is a bonus. Well done Art.

I'm sure the gull is laughing with you. :)

Great find and I have never seen an image of this species before. I like the pose as it shows the unusual shape of the head and eyes really well. Are they feeding on fish and how do they find food, like skimmers?

Beautiful capture Artie with a wonderful pose and great eye contact. Love the open beak and low angle in this image but do wonder about it being centered. Would be interested to know your reason Artie for this choice of crop.

Loved those expressions. The tongue sticking out + its eyes are a real add-on for the image. Tack sharp image.
Agree with other on need for off-centering the image...

What an awesome looking bird Artie! So neat! I am not a fan of the BG, but you had to have been rather quick to capture these frames in the little available time. Thanks for sharing. :)

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Originally Posted by Judy Lynn Malloch

Beautiful capture Artie with a wonderful pose and great eye contact. Love the open beak and low angle in this image but do wonder about it being centered. Would be interested to know your reason Artie for this choice of crop.

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Hi Judy. This is the uncropped image right out of the camera. I cropped from the right in order to get the bird at least a bit out of the center (as noted above) and then took a bit off the top for COMP balance. (In the ORIG the bird is actually forward of center...) Then I created a QM of the righ- hand rock and did a Gaussian blur on it, probably about 20 pixels. I use this technique often and when I do, I make sure to paint the mask well into the background.

Hope that this answers your question. BTW, the left-hand rock is what it is. As I said, I had several teed up perfectly but they just flew away at the wrong instant... And the worst part is that they are very tame...

One benefit I see though is the framing by the OOF rocks. :)

BTW, did you get my e-mail reply re: itinerary? It's OK, let me know.

Many thanks Artie for your info. It is really very helpful to know the reasons as we are always learning.

Don't know if this version will get people past the left hand rock. See what you think, just a little b/w conversion and gaussian blur to rock only in capture nx.
Todd

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Originally Posted by Todd Frost

Don't know if this version will get people past the left hand rock. See what you think, just a little b/w conversion and gaussian blur to rock only in capture nx.
Todd

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Thanks Bud. I like the rh rock much better and the more cyan sky, but the reds are now over-the-top.

I didn't touch anything but the rock, must have done something in the save for web?
Todd

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Originally Posted by Todd Frost

I didn't touch anything but the rock, must have done something in the save for web?
Todd

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There are often color shifts when saving for web or simply when re-saving JPEGS. And when I create my JPEGs via an action they almost always get darker; I am thinking of adding a step to the action to lighten them all...

Great pose. Sorry I didn't get to see this behavior last year. Sounds like the birds had fun teasing you. I like the centered comp, given the framing by the rocks on either side. I think Todd may be on to something with the change he made to the left rock (though not with the other colors :) )

I like the sharpness of the bird and its colors, but the two rocks on the sides are very distracting parting from the point of view that the bird is very white. The rock could be tone down a little bit too.

Man, this is so cool! Part dove, part gull :-) I don't mind the rocks since they balance the image. I really like Todds's idea of desaturating the left rock - I have to admit I never would have thought of that option!!

very nice portrait Artie, what a cool looking bird. I like the pose, and action captured., maybe a little off the right.

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Originally Posted by Peter Kes

Just out of interest, how do you get the copyright symbol in the filename ?

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I am confused; where did you see the copyright symbol???

Thanks (though I am a bit confused--not sure why the rest of our meta-data seems to be gone...) No my area of expertise...