Parental Love

[Jay Tan]

Here in Singapore, we have a yearly season where adult and juvenile Little Terns will gather at a local reservoir and the adults will hunt and feed the little ones. The little ones will sit around on the granite rocks and try practicing a little flight sometimes. There were several families around and the adults only feed their own kids. Here is one instance of the feeding scene. It was a joy making images then. :)

Canon 30D, 600mm, f/10, 1/1000

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Hi Jay, great timing and moment captured. It looks a bit soft on my screen. Maybe another round of sharpening? There is a slight S/H halo around the black plumage of the heads.

[Andrew McCullough]

Thrilling action. Agree with Axel on the softness.

[Jay Tan]

Thanks guys...have redone the image a little with a round of USM and brightening up the bg. Is it better?

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Thanks guys...have redone the image a little with a round of USM and brightening up the bg. Is it better?

Yes, it does look better. There still is a little S/H halo but it is not too bad. Maybe you could apply some NR on the BG.

[Fabs Forns]

Powerful image, love the pose on the adult!

There's still a bit of halo, but easy to fix. Before you sharpen, since the sky is solid blue, select it with the magic wand, invert the selection, go to Select>Modify>Contract and go in 1 pixel (maybe two) and then sharpen. Sin you will be working inside of the edges, there will be no halo.

Hope this helps :)

[Glenn Bartley]

Wonderful interactive image. Very well captured.

[Jody Melanson]

Wonderful action captured here. I agree with the others and Fab is offering some excellent advice on processing.

[Manos Papadomanolakis]

Great timing,nice work!