Practicing BIF with the local gulls - this imm. Ring-billed probably the cousin of the one I posted yesterday. I'm experimenting with backing off a bit from the full 400 mm. focal length, and stopping down a notch or two from full open if the light allows. Could be my imagination but it seems to give me slightly sharper images. The sky was incredibly blue (for New Jersey) at 5:00 PM on Monday evening; I desaturated quite a bit and it still looks strong.
Hi Bill You are correct on the backing down, that lens is not as sharp at 400 !! .... stopping at 370 or so will make a difference. One of our Avian Moderators (Juan) has had lots of experience with it and does recommend just that !!
Exposure wise might want to check the histogram and might find its a little under exposed? Head of the bird looks great but need more light under the wings.
Ideally you want the wings totally straight but this is not bad at all and the image is very sharp !!! Shutter speed wise you don't need that much, normally 1600 or over is just fine unless you want to freeze the wingtips of a flapping bird. Excellent image and doing real well with that lens !!!!!
You are on the right track Bill,
I too have that Nikkor lens and agree on stopping it down. I like your capture, would recommend lightening up the under wing a tad...congrats on the capture...:cool:
Bill, Good advice given above. I see a small halo around the tail and a bit on the wings. The details on the head and the eye contact are great. Nice framing.Not easy to get everything right w/ BIF but this one looks sharp!
Thanks for the advice. I have brightened the whole image just a bit, and dodged the under wings. I got rid of some of the halo, but probably not all of it. Brightening may have caused me to clip the whites on the leading wing edges.
great job knowing your equipment and doing what is best for the best image. only thing i might add is running some noise reduction on the sky. fantastic detail on the head. i like the contact with the bird!
this is a ice catch Bill.....caution on using desaturating as a method to lighten skies.
You can get some really strange effects. You already have a string halo around
perimeter of the gull. A simple levels adjust of only the midtone slide a long way
to the left resulted in this image. IMO, it has helped gull and sky.
Your gull seems a bit contrasty to me.
Just playing, see what you think and keep 'em coming
Gull in flight
