Conowingo gull

[Ryan von Linden]

I recently made my first trip to Conowingo to photograph the eagles. On the first day the gulls were so active that I came away with as many gull fishing pictures as I did eagle fishing pictures.

1DX, 600 f4 IS II + 1.4x III
ISO 400
1/2000
f6.3

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Ryan, well timed for the fishing behaviour, and we have a good view of his catch. I do like the splash behind the Gull too. With your fast ss, I would have expected the Gull to be sharper.

[gail bisson]

HI Ryan,
Good action shot with a nice wing position. Bonus to have the fish.
Fun foot position.
I like your comp but could see a version with a bit more room on the left.
If mine, I would clone out the line of specular highlights/drops near the water,
Gail

[Bill Dix]

Yes, there's more to Conowingo than eagles. Great action captured and very good wing/tail/foot positions. Ditto the comments from Stu and Gail.

[Ryan von Linden]

Thanks for the comments. Stu, I think the bird got just a bit ahead of the AF, which was probably down to user error. At full resolution on my monitor it doesn't look bad, but I agree that it's not as eye-popping sharp as it could be.

Gail, I agree on the positioning but this is right up against the left edge already (the bird was a bit ahead of me too obviously, which I think is the root cause for the focus as well). I could crop in a bit from the right but liked having the reflection in the water. I did consider removing that string of droplets, in the end I chose not to but may revisit that, I agree they are distracting.