Inbound Tern

[Randall Farhy]

Spent the better part of an afternoon working a group of Terns at the Brigantine Wildlife Refuge (part of the Forsythe Reserve) in NJ. While I enjoy photographing birds, I am not familiar with the names of many sub-species. Conditions were overcast and windy, with varying degrees of light. This is only my second time working with Terns and I wanted to capture various in flight poses against backgrounds other than gray sky. I would prefer better background separation, but quarters were tight for a 400mm 5.6 in this particular spot. One of my favorite aspects of this image is the billowy pillow effect of the wings.

Camera: Canon 7D

Lens: 400mm F5.6L No filter

Exposure: ISO 800, 1/2000 F5.6 Handheld No Exp.Comps.

Focus: Back button, Center cluster (keeping a single point on these guys in flight is still a challenge!)

Metering: Evaluative, manual mode

Processing: Lightroom4, Topaz plugins: Denoise5, Adjust. Crop: Aprox 33% for position.

[Bob Miller]

HI Randall.......Good shot with a difficult subject. I know how fast these guys can be. I like your idea of shooting them against something other than sky.

[Kerry Perkins]

Hi Randall, welcome to BPN and the Eager To Learn forum! You have a real nice first post here, welcome also to the 7D/400 club. Your exposure formula is spot on for me and you have handled the whites well with it. Color rendition looks good to me too. The eyes could be a little lighter IMO. Nice BIF technique displayed with strong composition. All in all, an excellent image. Looking forward to more from you.

[Randall Farhy]

Thank you Bob and Kerry for the reviews.

Kerry- The 7D/400 combo has been a love/frustrate relationship-when it's on, it nails 'em-but my keeper rate for BIF could use improvement. (Mostly in technique I'm sure). From work I've seen around the web, the 7D's sensor can retain an amazing amount of detail, it's also very forgiving on highlights in post. I'll try lightening the eyes a touch, hadn't given it a thought on this one. Looking forward to spending more time in the different areas of this website!