Give It To Me!!!

[Moody McCall]

This was shot one morning this past June. I looked up and saw this fight going on between the Tern and the Laughing Gull. I captured a few frames. This was my favorite. This was shot with the canon 1dx canon 100-400 II ISO 400 f9 1/640

[Chris Elliott]

Moody,

Good eye on capturing the action, but the image is soft due to, I assume, slow shutter speed. For Birds in Flight, you need as much shutter speed as the available light and your camera's ISO will allow. You have the gear that allows you to shoot higher ISO without introducing too much noise, so begin to pushing the ISO higher in order to gain shutter speed. Ideally for consistently crisp BIF shots, you should have a minimum shutter speed of 1/2000. Study the image details of the BIF shots here in this forum and you will start to understand the settings required for BIF shots.

Chris

[Moody McCall]

Thanks Chris. I think I was shooting the chicks on the beach with this slower shutter speed when the action occurred and did not have time to change. I thought the heads of the birds and the fish was sharp so the wing tips a little blurry I was ok with. But I agree wish I had the faster SS!

[stuart wanuck]

super interaction

[arash_hazeghi]

action is superb but the poor IQ is holding it back. it is too soft and blurry to be a keeper unfortunately, especially the heads. you had the wrong setting in your camera, you should have increased the ISO to 1600, chosen a wide open aperture and much much faster shutter speed. Even when shooting perched birds is best to setup yourself for action just in case something like this happens

TFS

[David Salem]

Your exposure settings were set for a perched bird, that isn't going to move at all, and you are shooting 25 feet from it. I shoot the same camera as you and I rarely go below ISO 640 and 1/1250 of a second. Keep your ISO to a decent setting,640 - 1600, shoot close to wide open, unless you are pretty darn close, and keep your shutter speed up.
For most avian photography, especially action photography, keep your shutter speed up as much as you reasonably can. Then as it starts to get harder to keep the speed up, start taping into your ISO. Aperture is for gaining DOF and shouldn't need to be stopped down much unless you are getting really close. I rarely shoot above 6.3 and I keep my aperture setting pretty constant throughout a morning of shooting. I mostly change shutter speed to adjust for the changing light. If this were shot at 1/2000th of a second or better, it probably would be nice and sharp. Great action and I hope this helps.