"What a Rush"

[David Salem]

Spring is in the air and the Grebes are starting their courtship ritual again. I captured this frame two weekends ago when I invited BPN member Patrick Sparkman out to shoot rushing grebes with us. We had a great time and we had quite a few birds rushing in front of us. One of the rushes came right at us and ended 25 feet in front us. Full frame! It was a literal rush!
Last weekend Arthur Morris came out with us to shoot this spectacle and even though the birds had dropped off quite a bit, he still managed to get some nice keepers and we all had a great time shooting together and watching these awesome birds for the telltale signs that a rush is about to happen.
We had quite a few nice food transfers that day too.
This is one of my favorite frames I have captured of this behavior.

1DX---840mm---f10---ss1/2500---ISO800---HH@8:45am---35% crop.

Thanks as always for looking and for your input. I appreciate it.

David

[David Salem]

Forgot to mention that I did do some clean up to the BG to remove a few distant twigs.

[christopher galeski]

Loverly capture,nice exposure and action,good detail,well done.

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Hi David, this is stunning! Great exposure, techs and comp. Love the symmetry of the pair and the splash behind. Amazing work indeed!! TFS.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi David, excellent timing on this because the beak isn't intersecting the second birds eye.

Love the chests pushed out, wings back and the displaced water which provides a great sense of speed & power. Have to ask David, are the catchlights real as they really do stand out when set against that bright red eye???? Personally I would have liked a tad more space in front & a sliver below, however, overall a lovely capture.

TFS
Steve

[keith mitchell]

David great the way you have managed to get both birds so sharp and detailed ,water splashes on that dark Bg really do stand out,very nice indeed.

Keith.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Wow that is absolutely superb, great moment caught in excellent detail - congratulations.

[Joseph Przybyla]

Nice work, David... thank you for sharing.

[Bill Dix]

Simply amazing. Especially at full frame. Perfect synchronization, both eyes clear, great in-camera comp. Well done indeed.

[David Salem]

Thanks so much everyone for the comments. I appreciate it.

[David Salem]

Steve,
Those are the natural unaltered catchlights as seen. I thought about adding a black pupil to the female in the front as it is either very small, or the catch light is right on top of it, so I decided to leave it as is.
Thanks as always for your comments and suggestions.

Bill,
This is not the full frame image that I spoke of. This one is about a 35% crop of the original. I will post the full frame one soon.
Thanks as always also

[Steve Kaluski]

Cheers David.

[Lorant Voros]

Super powerful, great action, eye contact, parallel bodies and lot's of water. I really like the chosen crop as well. Well done, David.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Dave, I really like the behaviour here, and both in perfect focus and sharp. You nailed the overall exposure, and love those red eyes. As mentioned FF, and you have left the cool splash in, but having a little more space on the left would have really taken this off the top. Still, very well captured.

[Marina Scarr]

This is one heck of a frame, David. Love the behavior you captured and your DOF worked out well. Love the splash, the visible foot, the raised wings and beaks. I would like to see a bit more space maybe either left and top or right and top.

[William Dickson]

Wow, excellent action. Everything looking good. Love how the splash moves towards the Grebe. What a dance.

Well done David

Will

[Jim Crosswell]

Great image David! I like the action, poses, IQ, exposure and composition.

[annmpacheco]

Awesome David, superb!!! would you share your thoughts about what you used here with two birds: single point, expanded, surround? ideally would you place the active sensor or the chest area on the nearest grebe? thanks, ann

[David Salem]

Thanks everyone. Appreciate the comments.

[Kirk Benson]

Wow David, I can't remember ever seeing a better image of this courtship behavior. Their symmetry is so cool, and the kicked-up water conveys the rushing just perfectly.
Detail is amazingly good, exposure and processing are masterfully done... this is a superb image in every way David. Congrats!

Kirk

[David Salem]

Thanks allot Kirk and Ann for the nice comments. I appreciate them.

Good questions Ann.

I change between single point and expanded points (4 points around the center and 8 points around the center) depending on the shooting situation. I never use more than the 8 points as I am always trying to get as a precise focus point as I can for the situation I am shooting. I use the wider 8 points for stuff in flight against varied backgrounds, like Harriers in the reeds or Peregrines around a cliff side eyrie.

For these Grebes I used a single focus point because they are on the water and the expanded focus points will hit the water and change focus more often if you aren't right on the bird. I have been using single point more and more often, but it is pretty hard to be right on the bird with only one focus point, even with this moderately slow rushing action.
To tell you that I'm trying to aim at a certain part of a bird, or even the front or rear bird would be a lie. I am pretty good at this, but the reality of it is that this isn't easy and keeping a bird right in the middle of the frame is a big challenge no mater what, especially when you are hand holding big 13 pound rigs like these
In a perfect scenario, everything would happen just the way you want it to, but as we all know, that is rarely the case. You wind up holding the rig up for 15-20 seconds waiting for the birds to go, which isn't easy, then just as your arms are about to fall off, they go! Now you are just trying to keep them kinda in the middle of the viewfinder, as you are shooting 12 fps like a gatling gun, and the birds are rushing pretty fast with water flying all over. I try as hard as I can but I drift in and out of the middle as I am tracking them rushing.

I will tell you one thing that I have learned about continuous shooting. It is that it seems to me that if you lock on at an early point in a sequence, the focus seems to stay locked on better as the camera is shooting at a high frame rate. Meaning once you lock on to any bird in action, Hold down the shutter or focus lock, and fire with everything you've got. This is the only time of the year that I regularly fill my buffer and seize my shooting sequence. My buddy shot a 68 frame burst last weekend of a rush before his buffer filled.

I did learn something cool after shooting these guys a few times. I figured if they are rushing side by side, which is the norm, one of the birds is probably going to be out of the DOF and wind up being in soft focus. I had remembered this happening to me last year . On this trip I decided to keep my ISO up a little and stop down enough to try to get both birds reasonably sharp. I shot frames from f7.1 to f10, kept my shutter speed high enough to freeze the action, and found that the frames shot at f10, like this one, were the best at having both birds heads reasonably sharp.

Thanks again for your comment and I hope this helps.

[gail bisson]

Simply killer good!!

[Arthur Morris]

Yuppers. It was great finally meeting you. This one is beyond spectacular; the juxtaposition of the two heads is too, too perfect as is the rest of the image. a

[arash_hazeghi]

It is an amazing shot Dave, hadn't seen one quite like this before

TFS

[James Salywoda]

This is by far the best behavior capture I've seen of this species incredible shot

[annmpacheco]

Hi David,
Thank you very much for explaining your thoughts regarding your chosen focus point(s). Interesting consideration for single point focus because of the water and maybe the flying water too. Also, good advice for locking on early and "firing away". your experience of shooting these grebes prior was so helpful this time in perfecting your dof, bravo David, perfecto eh! Ive been more aware of "covering" the bird/dof in the field and will stop down and or try a different focus point if i am given the opportunity during the shoot.
thanks again for your time and i enjoyed reading your process! Again, such a awesome image!, Ann

[David Salem]

Thanks so much Gail, Arash and James for the nice comments. I'm sure glad you like the frame. It is my favorite grebe shot.

Thanks a lot Arthur,
I hope you get something like this before you leave California.

Ann,
I'm glad that gave you some insight.
Thanks again.