Photographed this pair of Common Terns at Breezy Point in Queens NY on 5/28/16. There is a very large breeding colony there and I had the pleasure of spending many beautiful evenings watching and photographing them this year. Thankfully the portion of the beach where they often congregate is mostly clean and flat with very little debris. I set up far away and slowly crawl to a spot where I know the birds are not bothered by my presence.
Canon 7d mark ii and Canon 500 f4 ii + 1.4xiii. F 7.1, ISO 400, SS 1/3200. Evalutative metering. Tripod mounted while lying in the sand.
Converted in DPP 4.5. Highlights -2, Shadows +1. In PS I cropped off maybe 20%. Sharpened the birds and removed a slight blue color cast. Applied NR to background and cleaned up a few small shells on the beach.
I like it, the two birds are so synchronised! These courtship displays are always great to see, and you obviously went to considerable lengths to capture this one. The combination of aperture and low shooting angle has done a good job of isolating the zone of focus of the subjects from the OOF foreground and background. The shadow line joining the two birds even becomes an important part of the composition. I assume the curved-top white area behind the birds is crashing surf, in which case you wouldn't have a great deal of control over it but it seems to work pretty well in the composition. The only minor suggestion I'd make is finding a way to slightly tone back the brightness of the area of white directly above the right-hand bird's head, which tends to draw the eye a bit.
Wonderful capture of the pair. I like most everything about it. Synchronized position, low angle, dof and bg although I do find the dark area above bird #1 head a bit distracting.
Excellent capture, Isaac. Like the almost perfect duplicate of one another's poses. Nice positioning on the clear sand between what looks to be lines of sea foam. Great low pov.
Common Terns courting
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