checked out the anhinga trail yesterday afternoon due to obscene traffic going to the airshow that i wanted to go to!:( few birds, but this cormy was around fishing. got a few snaps of his takeoff.
recovered highlights and added some black in ACR. in CS3, i cropped off the top and bottom only to accentuate the forward movement, added some contrast, boosted the midtone contrast just a little, added very little warmth, ran NR and sharpened with smart sharpen.
my question is this: the first couple of frames were fairly sharp, but after that it seemed to not continous focus even though the camera was set to do that. i do remember bumping the focus on about the fifth or sixth frame because i thought i was losing it, but it did not reaquire. i had the bird in the center of the frame the entire time knowing the center sensor would be on the bird.
D300, 300mm, f/4.5, 1/800s, 0EV, ISO 800. camera was AF-C, Dynamic 21 points
thanks for looking. comments and critiques much appreciated.
Hi Doctor,
From Iron Eagles flying at the speed of sound to feathered Cormorants at the Anhinga Air Strip...what a day...:eek::D;) I love it...I wish I was there too...actually you did very well, I like the semi-blurred wing tips and the rear splashes of water left in this little guy's trail...he was going at a good clip...the color rendition and details are good, might just want to selective sharpen the eye just a tad more...:cool: Looking forward to more...:)
Love the taking off pose, the water slash behind the bird, the blurred wing which imply motion, and the lovely blue eye. I like your choice of crop too, but might try to move the bird off center a little bit more, maybe loosing the 2nd water splash on the left.
As for focusing I don't know. Was your 21 points go over the bird into the background? Maybe a tighter 9 points would help since you have the center focus on the bird the whole time. Also what is your focus lock-on parameter set to (I think A4 setting)?
Hi Mr H - Great action feel to it - Dont mind the blurred wings with the water splashes creates a good feel.
Agree with Gus would sharpen the eye a tad - think you did pretty well.
:)
Hi Harold Not sure about the focus I have sequences all sharp others focus is lost ... some programs show the focus point being active .. would be nice to know !!!
you guys are too nice! i personally thought this image sucked. flat light, ugly water = not so good image. but i appreciate the comments!
al, viewnx does show the active focus points. this one happened to be on the left wing just above it's back. (the point in the center just above the center). some others, it jumped around. one even locked on the water, but most after the first five frames did not lock at all.
one thing that i did not realize was that AF would jump around from point to point. i thought when you bumped the AF, you had to reacquire with the center point before AF would become active again. maybe i'll just switch to center point and go from there.
ENP Cormorant
