A Twist on Blur Technique

When Denise and I visited Fort DeSoto Park near St. Petersburg, FL about on APR 11 we were thrilled to encounter a large flock of migrant Common Terns. I had previously seen such a flock there only in fall. The best news is that the flock was blasting off every five to ten minutes or so: Bosque at the beach. :)

This image was created with the Canon 800mm f/5.6L IS lens with the EOS-1D Mark IV. ISO 500. Evaluative metering +2 stops: 1/60 sec. at f/5.6 set manually.

Why such a huge blur at a relatively (for a distant flock) fast shutter speed? (The farther away the birds, the less the degree of blurring at a given shutter speed.) The reason for the large degree of blurring is that I kept the lens still as the birds blasted off. (You can see that the birds on the ground are fairly sharply rendered.) Had I panned with the birds as they took flight they would have been relatively sharp while the birds on the ground would have been a bit blurred.

Don't be shy; all comments welcome.

Really like this Artie. I love how there appear to be layers of blur and the focus gets sharper as you scan down to the bottom of the image. I had a go with blurs at Bosque and found them harder than I thought!

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Originally Posted by Kerry Perkins

I had a go with blurs at Bosque and found them harder than I thought!

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Thanks Kerry. That's why Denise and I are working on a Guide to Pleasing Blurs. As you likely know, I have made a few successful blurs at Bosque :) and a few successful sharp ones too. :) :) Next year there will be my 16th in a row there at Thanksgiving in part to honor the memory of my late wife Elaine. I love the place.

I really, madly, deeply want to come to Bosque for Thanksgiving this year. But... It will be my wife's mother's 80th birthday and I'm not going to make it. :( I fell in love with it too. I spent a total of eight days there last November. Out before dawn and didn't come in until after dark.

Enjoy the bird-day party!

Artie, It was a great to see the blast off of these Terns. I never witnessed anything like it before. I like how the birds are in focus on the bottom, it really makes the image sweet.:)

Thank you. Wait till you get to Bosque in NOV!

Artie, love this image... just as Kerry mentioned, layers of blur and how it gets sharper lower down. First I could not understand till I read your explanation. Just beautiful. I am yet to send you the form for Bosque; will do so this week.

One of the greatest pleasures I find in nature photography is when living animals can be 'seen' as an artistic subject. Whilst I love well made images of birds and animals which show them as they are, I love even more the images which turn a living creature into a work of art which has been visualised by the photographer prior to firing the shutter. (Sorry for the wordy sentence :o )

I love these kinds of photographs where there is a mainly graphic look and where colours don't over power those graphics. Will look forward to learning how to do these blur techniques 'better', because I haven't had much success at all yet. :)

Thanks for your kind words, Hillary. I will post some more from that day and hope that Denise does the same. Too bad that it is such a long flight from Down Under to Bosque else you could join us on the Thanksgiving IPT next November :) Actually, Chris Van Rooyen is joining me as co-leader on that trip, we have had folks on IPTs who traveled from Japan and Hong Kong, and we offer a 10% discount to all BPN members who attend IPTs :)

The first requirement for blurred images of big flocks of birds is of course, big flocks of birds :) Do you have any situations like that where you are?

Thanks Artie, I would love to join you one November, what fun.

I hadn't thought about large flocks of birds but near us we have large (in excess of 3000 birds) flocks of little corellas (a large white parrot). I will see if I can experiment on them. Why didn't I think of it before? :(

Thank you thank you … but not promising to ever post anything in case they are shocking. ;)

YAW. We look forward to seeing some of your corellas blurs. The faster they fly and the more they swirl about the better!

Very nice, Artie. Love the layers of birds going from blurred to sharp. Unfortunately there aren't really any big flocks of birds where I live, so I can't really try this. :( Oh well, maybe some day.

Where in MASS do you live???

I live in central Mass.