Portrait Bridled Tern

[keith mitchell]

Nikon D4
Nikon 300mm 2.8
1/1600@f8
iso 500


Thanks for taking a look and your comments on my last post, much appreciated

[William Dickson]

Nice detail here Keith. I like the colours on the bird, blending nicely with the BG colour.

Will

[stuart wanuck]

Yes lovely portrait nice whites

[Joseph Przybyla]

Beautiful bird, sharp detail on the head, eye and bill. Perfect background and color. I am trying to figure out at F/8 why the shoulder appears soft. I wonder how much depth of field you have with that lens, I am not familiar with it. Thanks for sharing, Keith.

[keith mitchell]

Good point Joe I will have a look and make sure I have the right info, pleased you pointed this out. It should be F5.6 and still don't no why I used that. Think I might have got carried away with the sharpness of the head and beak.

Keith.

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

You must've been pretty close.
Don't be afraid of cranking up the ISO with your D4 mate.
Not sure exactly how much more sharpness you would've
gotten, but certainly more had you have stopped down several stops.
Head and bill very sharp and nice details as well.
A little eye work may be also beneficial. Just looks very dark.
thanks for sharing

[Geoff Newhouse]

A very nice portrait of a new to me bird. I notice a lot of haloing around the subject, white halo on the top and some dark halos on the bottom. Not sure if this is from PP or something else with the lens or shooting conditions. The DOF appears very odd to me also. I wouldn't expect the shoulder to go that OOF as the bill and eye are tack sharp. Almost looks like NR was done in those areas?? Or was excessive sharpening done on the head?? Just doesn't look natural and I know the 300 f/2.8 can render much more pleasing transitions in the focal to out of focus planes....

TFS
Geoff

[keith mitchell]

Thanks guys much appreciated, Geoff afraid my old eyes cannot see the halos that you point out but there was no sharping done on this image, thanks for pointing it out.

Keith.

[Arthur Morris]

Beautiful bird, sharp detail on the head, eye and bill. Perfect background and color. I am trying to figure out at F/8 why the shoulder appears soft. I wonder how much depth of field you have with that lens, I am not familiar with it. Thanks for sharing, Keith.

Lovely as noted above. At "only" 300mm he had to have been at point blank range where d-o-f is at a minimum. The soft shoulders do not bother me at all as the face is so sharp. The dark halo is distracting. Any clues how that was introduced Keith? a

[keith mitchell]

Thanks Arthur, though about this for a while ,before posting think I may have mistook the softness of the shoulder for noise and did apply some NR to it, would this give the effect that yourself and Geoff pointed out? Took this shot on Penguin island which is off the coast off Western Australia ,these birds where very approachable to take shots at a very close range.