Glossy Ibis in Flight

[Ashleigh Scully]

Manual Exposure (ISO 400, 400mm, f/5.6, 1/1600)

30% crop, light saturation and sharpening.

AI Servo Single-point AF - Central focus sensor on wing, not face.

In cases of BIF, is this the proper setting, or should multi focus points be enabled?

[gail bisson]

Hi Ashleigh,
I am afraid the bird is soft. You may be able to salvage it a bit by sharpening it more.
You need a higher SS. If you have excellent panning skills 1/1600 would probably be enough but generally you need 1/2000 minimum.
Good wing position and the iridescence shows well here.
Gail

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

Beautiful flight pose Ashley. I agree the bird looks soft but maybe with a little tweak in the levels for contrast and some sharpening you can improve it.

[Loi Nguyen]

Ashley, you already got good comments here from Gail and Cheryl. If I remember from previous post, you are shooting with a 7D (to make it easy for people to critique your image, please list your camera and lens also for each post), so you could go for ISO-640 or 800 and SS of 1/2500 or 1/3200. I have not used the 7D, but you should have central censor with expanded points. This is the mode many folks would use for BIF. Single central point requires a bit more skill in panning to keep the bird in focus. Multi-focus is a gamble on where the focus would lock. Loi

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Ashley, I am suspecting the crop is also hurting the IQ a bit. by 30% do you mean that 70% pixels were cropped out? then thats a big crop. I like the colors. would have been better with head turned a little towards you.

[dankearl]

Not bad Ashley, it looks like it could be sharpened a tad more.
Nice work getting a BIF image, you will only improve.

[arash_hazeghi]

Hey Ashleigh!

Looks very nice with those iridescent colors. you got the topside of the wing too! If you get him just a bit earlier would look nicer because the viewer feels to subject is coming at them.

for focus when your background is sky you can use all points because there is no contrast besides the bird for focus points to grab, but if you are shooting him against say a beautiful green background with bush and trees use only center point. try to use a faster shutter speed too, like 1/2000sec.

you have done well!

Arash

[Ashleigh Scully]

HI everyone, thank you for your comments.

Loi - yes, I will include camera info in the future - thanks :)

Kaustubh - by 30% crop, I mean I only cut off about 30% of the image, maybe even less. I was pretty close. I think the softness was because of my slow shutter speed, really.

Thank you all again. Will try posting a Great Horned Owl photo later tonight.

Ashleigh

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Ashleigh,
Tough bird and you got some great advice above! The almosts are what motivate me!