Blades of light

[Krijn Trimbos]

This must have been one of the most frustrating excersisions of my life. Taking razorsharp flightshots of these birds is pretty difficult already, but trying for a pan blur where the body is sort of sharp and the rest OOF while handholding (they move to fast to try this from a tripod IMHO) is another ballgame. At a beautiful morning I tried for my first backlit panblur flightshots of common murres/guillimots which I hoped would give a cool effect to the fast flapping wings. I think I tried this for about 45 minutes after which I got only one keeper. If I would have had more time in Ireland I think I would have done this much longer, but for now this is one I am very happy with. Hope you like it as well,

Canon 50D 1/25 f25 Manual
ISO 200
Canon 300mm F2.8 L USM
Handheld

[Stephen Earle]

I always appreciate any attempt at a pan blur. This works for me although a bit sharper head with some detail would have improved the shot. Did you try any at a slightly faster ss, say 1/60? I find it a real hit and miss affair.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the idea and execution, I particularly like the 'hummingbird-like' wingflap and only wish that we could see the eye a bit better.

[Amy Marques]

You did good an the title fits the description of the wings well. A hint of the eye would have made a perfect. Excellent job otherwise.

[David Fletcher]

Very appealing! Wish also for a tad more head details, but very artistic as is.

[Krijn Trimbos]

Thanks for the comments people!

I would have really wanted a little detail in the eye area as well. I have looked at the RAW file and in this kind of backlit shot with this kind of contrast it just proved to be impossible, there is just no detail there. I have several of the gannets with really good detail in the head, but I think in birds with black heads it is almost impossible or you must be extremely lucky to get a catchlight of some sort in backlit shots like this while attempting a pan blur......... although it would have been perfect I agree!

I have tried with 1/60 but it didn't really help any to be honest. This is the best I have so far

Just my 2 cnts

Thanks again.

Cheers,

Krijn

[Harold Davis]

i like the out of the box image. agree about the eye area, but still fantastic as is.

[Arsdel Fluesmeier]

Too bad the head isn't a bit clearer. I like the "Hummingbird treatment".

[Ramon M. Casares]

I like it as presented, it work fine to me although there are some good suggestions above! Congratulations!

[Stu Bowie]

I really like the shape the wings have formed with the motion blur. I feel if the head was sharper, this would be a winner.

[Juan Aragonés]

Krijn I think that this one is a good example of th eidea that a good image has not necessary needs to be absolutelly sharp. Needless to say that I really like this one. It is very obvious that this species flight really fast and this image is a good proof of that and describes, in a visual way, very well the personality and environment of this flying bullets.

I think that you can impreve the result boosting a bit the warm light and saturation of the backlighthened areas and adding another round of noise reduction to the BG (it seems to have mostly color noise)

A very good job IMO Krijn