Swimming in the air

[Desmond Chan]

D300 70-300VR hand-held. Manual exposure mode, no flash. ISO 800 f7.1 1/1000s.

C&C welcome and appreciated !

Thanks for looking !!!

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Love the capture and the fantastic BG as well, HH too, wow. What are you using for a metering reference point?

I really love the wing extension, I like this picture a lot. You capture the beauty of their flight and a frozen moment in fluid motion - well done. I would love to have this one in my collection.

[Arthur Morris]

Ditto Jeff and amazing pose. Love the far wing position. For shame the bird was not looking a bit towards you rather than a bit away, but still an amazing capture.

How large a crop?

[Randy Stout]

Desmond:

Congrats on a fine, and very difficult capture. Not the fastest focusing lens in the world, you have done very well. Is the bird coming in to land or just taking off? Background is?

Having tried this type of shot, I appreciate the challenges. Do you have a MB-D10 on your D300 to get the fps up?

Thanks for sharing!

Randy

[Desmond Chan]

What are you using for a metering reference point?

Not particularly on the bird but rather the whole scene, or something closer to mid-gray like grass and leaves in a tree near-by. With the LCD and histogram, I take test shots and check the histograms for proper exposure settings. IMO, not much different than studio photogs did in the past taking polaroid shots to test the lighting and exposure. Sometimes I also use an incident light meter to help out.

For shame the bird was not looking a bit towards you rather than a bit away

Wow! You can see that ?? And I thought it was pretty good. :o

How large a crop?

About 50%.

Is the bird coming in to land or just taking off? Background is? [snip]
Do you have a MB-D10 on your D300 to get the fps up?

The tree swallow is hovering. You may have seen this pose before but I guess mostly in hummingbird shots. Background is water. And I use the MB-D10.


Thanks for the comments guys !!

[Arthur Morris]

Originally Posted by Arthur Morris
For shame the bird was not looking a bit towards you rather than a bit away

Wow! You can see that ?? And I thought it was pretty good. :o

It is pretty good, even excellent. But, to be a contest winner, it needed a better HA. I critique each image as if it were my own and I am admittedly tough. And to ignore something that might be improved upon in the future (just because the image is otherwise excellent) would not be of help to anybody :)

After noting sharpness of the face and eye HA is always the next thing that I look at. Get it right or you get arrested!

[Desmond Chan]

But, to be a contest winner, it needed a better HA. I critique each image as if it were my own and I am admittedly tough. And to ignore something that might be improved upon in the future (just because the image is otherwise excellent) would not be of help to anybody :)

After noting sharpness of the face and eye HA is always the next thing that I look at. Get it right or you get arrested!

All right :o

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

What a killer shot Desmond. HA is not ideal as said, but man! You got some speed in ya! ;)

You don't want to be arrested by the BPN police now do ya?

[Desmond Chan]

You don't want to be arrested by the BPN police now do ya?

:o

I am always amazed by what Artie sees in a photo :)