Bonaparte's Gull

[Kerry Perkins]

This is a cool little bird, much smaller than some of the big gulls. This is the only gull that regularly nests in trees. Do you like this shot with the blue sky, as captured, or would you like it better with some clouds in the sky?

1D4, EF400mm f/5.6L
Manual mode, f/7.1@1/3200 ISO 400 WB 5100K
AI Servo autofocus, hand-held no flash

[Jeannean Ryman]

Nice exposure and detail Kerry! I generally prefer clouds in the sky, but don't mind a clear blue sky either.

[Kerry Perkins]

Thank you Jeannean, I agree. Here's a better sky.

[Ian Cassell]

Hey, Kerry! One big issue I have with bird photography here in the desert southwest is our perfect (?) cloudless skies! In general, I much prefer a few white whisps here and there to a plain blue BG. Nice techs on a pretty bird that I haven't seen before.

[Kerry Perkins]

Ian, isn't if funny that we complain about clear blue skies? It is so true though that you can go out shooting for days at a time out here and never see a cloud. That's why I take pictures of skies with nice clouds and put them in a folder called "skies" for use in situations like this. One benefit of our blue skies though is that they make it really easy to select the whole sky and put our bird and sky on separate layers. One thing to keep in mind when doing this is that you need to make two new layers, not just one with only the sky or the bird. You need that original background layer plus the two isolated layers to make the image work well.

I love these delicate little gulls. They are so different from the big guys. I think I have some captures of the juveniles too, which look completely different. Think I'll go look...