Bad day to be a mayfly sp.

Artie finally got me involved with BPN and I'm priveleged to be part of a community with so many talented image-makers. Although I am a birder first, Artie has been a friend whose talent encouraged me to pick up a camera. As an artist, photography was a natural next-step for me when I no longer had the time to draw.

Anyway, all my images are made with a Canon 400mm 5.6 lens ("toy lens" as Artie likes to refer to it) occasionally with a 1.4x converter. At some point, (when GE stock recovers?) I MAY be able to afford a 500mm lens, but will have to invest in a GYM membership to carry it around. In the meantime, the toy lens it is..

Here's my first post, so go easy :)

This fantastic bird hung around eastern CT one spring feeding on mayflies. Difficult to expose for, but one of my favourite images of one of my favourite birds eating on the wing!

Swallow-tailed Kite, CT 4/15/05 400mm lens, Manual mode, 1000 sec @ f6.3, ISO 200, EV Metering 0

Hey Jules, nice to see you here. Very cool behavior and nice capture. You already know about the exposure issues. I look forward to seeing more your images here. Is the Hudwit still around?

Cheers,

Julian:

A big welcome to BPN. A challenging shot from exposure standpoint, you can pull a bit more detail out of the underside by lightly dodging it, without it looking artificial.

Look forward to more, and to your expertise with the birds.

Randy

Welcome Julian.

I agree with Randy about exposure here, and you handle it very well. I also find the light on head a little harsh but workable. Under wing detail seems great.

Thanks for the welcome..the sun was high and I couldn't do much with the head...I underexposed a little expecting to pull out the underside details in PS..something I could never do with film.

There isn't much detail left to pull out of the darks, but I brightened the whites a little to give it a little more contrast.

Scott - yip the Hudwit is still there this morning and showing extremely well - bit of a circus at times though!

Welcome Julian, great first post. All points already made, This is a lovely image of a bird I hope to someday have an opportunity with. Love the in flight feeding. Congrats

Interesting behavior and a great wing spread on one of my favorite species. Thanks for sharing this.

Big welcome Julian
rocking first post to start with
TFS

Hey Julian,

Nice bird..some day we will have one in Newfoundland. I think you did about the best you could considering the conditions and always nice to see the feeding behavior.

Dave Brown

Nice one Julian. Great first post and as Dave mentioned, have done about all you could to pull the best from it. Very well done. Dave