EOS-1D Mk III, 500mm f/4, 1/2500, f/5.6, ISO 400
About 90% of Full Frame
Photographed this morning in Plymouth, MA.
Removed small part of a chicken carcass protruding into the right edge and a few tiny
bits of chicken skin from the bill.
Local birders have been bringing an entire raw chicken each day for this bird.
This creates additional complications for photography as not only is the bird often right next to
the chicken but it also ends up spending much of the day with (sometimes rather large)
bits of chicken skin and meat stuck to its bill.
There have been some nice white-on-white images of this guy lately, but this works very beautifully!! Good PP work too. The gull gave you a perfect little head turn. Funny how most birders continually chastise photogs for baiting owls...but it's OK for them to feed chicken scraps to gulls.
Super portrait Mike. The warm light is great and I like the interest the BG provides. Great pose and sharpness. The head shadow is a bit distracting because it doesn't show the whole head and neck so it's initially confusing until you figure out what you are looking at.
Just a note about difficult exposures like this- you don't say if you were on Manual or Auto exposure but I've noticed with my recent IVGU images using Auto exposure that the meter was right on. I don't think we realise sometimes what an amazing job modern cameras are doing with exposure.
Hey Mike, Well done on all counts as above. As long as you and I are not feeding the owls the world will be a safe place.... What would have happened if you had gotten a few inches lower? (I see the dark stuff at the top of the frame....)
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Ivory Gull
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