Roseate Spoonbill in flight

[John Hawkins]

Took this today at Ding Darling. Not as sharp as I wished. I used my Sony A100 with a Sigma 50-500 lens used a Better Beamer. Data=f/6.3, 1/2500, +2.0 ev, ISO 400, 500mm. C&C's welcomed. Thanks, John

[Lance Peters]

HI John - Like how you have left some space up front for him to fly into, love the wings up pose and the exposure looks good.
The bird is angled away from you just a bit and he looks a tad soft in the head area - always best to get them before they have pasted your position, BG looks a little noisy and could use some NR.

Might need to stop that lens down a little more at 500mm to keep it really sharp - be intresting to see what other bigma users say :)

[Alfred Forns]

Agree with comments Can add I don't think the flash is doing much at all here John At 2500 your output is down to 1/8 (at best) so no light is reaching the bird.

Might want to see a little more room behind for the water droplets ... they are a part of the image and would fully include !!! ... hope you didn't get drenched over the west coast !!! We got clobbered around here !!!

[Jeff Cashdollar]

John,

Nice action shot, how much crop?

Where was the point of focus, details in the wings look good and I assume single center sensor?

[John Hawkins]

Thanks Lance Al and Jeff. Al we were clobbered all week. No rain this morning but a few showers this evening so far. Jeff, this is not cropped. I used spot meter but apparently missed the head. I need practice at panning. This was a second or less from when it left the water and I tried to anticipate it as I knew it would fly away from me and go left as others did. I got a few butt shots before I finally got this one.

[Gus Cobos]

Hi John,
I like the capture...very good advise given, and all of the techs. covered by Mr. Peters and Mr. Forns...looking forward to your next one...:cool:

[Jeff Cashdollar]

John,

Thanks for responding, I like your work. Spot metering would be challenging for BIF I would think. I use Eval and manual metering for BIF, most of the time. I have read about spot and tried once or twice, not for me.

I have plenty of butt shots as well (smile).

[Dave Phillips]

very nice capture John. I have taken liberty to apply some of the nits above,
esp the noise reduction and added canvas behind the bird. Also rotated
ccw about 1.5º to level the shoreline. Did a bit of tweaking to open up
bg with levels and also adjusted saturation on bird. Nothing fancy and
all easily done w/o any selection work.

hope you approve

[Gus Hallgren]

Hi John:

Very nice capture, and think that Dave took it over the top.

Love his version

Thanks for sharing

Uncle Gus

[Jill Davis]

Great capture of this spoonbill. Love the action in this. Very nice.

[John Hawkins]

Dave, Thanks, your work makes this much better. I don't know how to add canvas. I need to learn this.
Again thanks, John.