We don't see these guys very often up here, and only usually during this time of the year, and only usually flying too high and far away for good pictures. Well, three of them were loafing around with a roost of Ring-billed Gulls at a local city bus "park and ride" - a large parking lot where people park their cars for the day and take the bus from there. Usually skittish to boot, I was able to manoeuvre may car into position and get some killer full-frame portraits of these guys. Just as on foot, I had to move "low and slow" as they were indeed nervous compared to the gulls (which worked to my advantage as I was able to carefully "corral" them out of the tight group and away from the yellow parking lines ). This one was the "cleanest" of the three with a rich dark cap (the other two were in molting stages with lots of white showing there). As a bonus they hung around for a few days, with this last one featuring better light.
Canon 7D + 500mm f/4 II + 1.4TC, manual exposure, evaluative metering, 1/1600s., f/10, ISO 400, natural light, handheld from inside my car, full-frame, eye work to rid extra reflections, minor bill cleanup and actually desatuared the reds(!) The BG is indeed pavement.
Last edited by Daniel Cadieux; 08-27-2014 at 07:20 PM.
I usually wouldn't want pavement in the background, but the neutral gray (along with the white and black) really help that beak stand out. I can see why you desaturated it a bit. Love the tight shot and open beak.
Such a difficult image to execute and you did it to perfect. DOF, colors, comp, all perfect. Glad you had this opportunity, you certainly made a memorable image .
All perfect. Love the open bill and the few dark feathers below the crown.
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Great looking portrait of my favorite Tern. The open beak adds to the image and the colors and techs look great. Well done against a pavement BG!
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Caspian Tern Portrait.
). This one was the "cleanest" of the three with a rich dark cap (the other two were in molting stages with lots of white showing there). As a bonus they hung around for a few days, with this last one featuring better light.
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. TFS Andreas
