Shakin' With the New 200-400

[Doug Brown]

Here's a frame from my recent West Coast Flight workshop with Jim Neiger and guest instructor Arash Hazeghi. An Elegant Tern shaking off after diving into the water for a fish. This was my first chance to use the new 200-400mm lens, which was lent to me by one of the workshop participants. It's definitely a great lens; well built, excellent optics, and I love the built-in 1.4x. My only issue is the price, which at $12,000, is a little steep for focal length IMO.

Canon 1Dx, 200-400mm @ 526mm, f/7.1, 1/3200, ISO 400, manual exposure, hand held

[Bill Dix]

Great flight position captured, Doug. Terns make such great subjects, but not easy to capture. Light on the underwing would have put it over the top.

[Shawn Zierman]

Now that's a great action capture. Love the form created by the bird's pose. Awesome image.

[Grace Scalzo]

Fantastic! Not an easy photograph to capture. Love the action.

[Dan Brown]

A nice shake, Doug. The curves of the wings, tail and head produce an artistic composition!

[Iain Barker]

I love this Image Doug. I've been struggling to get an image of terns in a normal pose. This is a unique image.
Is the image cropped or FF?

[Doug Brown]

I love this Image Doug. I've been struggling to get an image of terns in a normal pose. This is a unique image.
Is the image cropped or FF?

Thanks Iain. This image is 70% of horizontal full frame.

[Gabriela Plesea]

Brilliant as always, Doug! All's been said above, the BG is a winner and I love the water droplets, the subject's movement, all well exposed, love it!!!

Kind regards,

[Jim Crosswell]

Excellent image Doug! I like the flying water drops, twisted body, IQ and BG.

[Marina Scarr]

This is a unique image, Doug. It's quite captivating with the pose,. water spray, ruffled feathers and varied BG.

[Satish Ranadive]

Beautiful artistic pose you have captured with very nice water droplets. Wonderful and colorful backdrop,lights,details and composition.

Regards,
Satish.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Doug, great pose, and I do like the light and overall colours. The flying droplets add to the unique inflight pose.

Im thinking of hiring one for next weekend for a 4 day trip to our Kruger National Park.

[David Salem]

Very cool pose on this contorted Tern. Love the fact that you got him in a varied BG. The water spray looks great too. Nice capture but I want to see the one I saw on your camera's display!

[Melissa Groo]

Oh man, that's so good it's sick...love the pose, drops, and killer background.

[Miguel Palaviccini]

Doug,

Very dynamic shot. The full 90 degree head tilt, the subtle highlight at the trailing edge of the wing, the tri-tone background (really like the inclusion of the blue at the bottom to help tie in the water droplets).

Yeah, at $12k that's a bit steep. I do hope that the next generation of super-teles all come with a built in 1.4x (and I hope they can keep the weight down too).

Miguel

[Doug Brown]

Thanks everyone for the feedback!