Hi folks.
First image post on BPN, so hopefully this'll work.
I'm a rank newcomer to flight photography, so I've been cramming the brain space with as much relevant info as I can these last weeks. A recent trip down to Bude, North Cornwall, offered the chance to wander down to the sea lock and scout out shooting possibilities with the inevitable Black Headed and Herring Gulls milling around Summerleaze beach.
Local fishermen use the well weathered mooring posts embedded in the sand and the gulls appreciate them as handy observation points before launching off at the first sign of a meal. Having had some flight tracking practice in the preceding 20 minutes or so, a large penny dropped with the usual hollow echo and I framed up asymmetrically on a Herring Gull on the nearest post.
Being unfit and overweight, although in the process of shedding the 'excess me', training the kit handheld for extended periods was a reminder to bring the tripod and gimbal next time...as 'my' gull mocked me by stepping forwards, pausing, stepping back, reversing direction and reverting until eventually he/she launched. Three frames later, only the first was sharp. The resulting image matches the composition of the RAW file but has been cropped to tighten (on the basis of leaving room for wing spread).
The most unexpected part of all this was the discovery that this particular Herring Gull is clearly a rabid 'Battlestar Galactica' fan and thinks it's a Cylon Raider. Must go back and see its rendition of a Colonial Viper...
Canon 7D MkII / Canon EF70-200mm f2.8L IS MkII @ 200mm / Canon EF2x teleconverter / AI Servo with max frame rate / 1/4000 second @ f5.6 and ISO 320.
I've been a fan of Stephen Dalton for decades and his pioneering high speed flash photography of the natural world. His comment that brief exposures reveal details about locomotion and behaviour that are undetected by the naked eye has never left me and after realising I'd got one out of three useable enjoyed studying the gull's posture and shape as it launched into the air.
Happy days.
TTFN
Steve