America's Most Wanted

[John Haig]

...at least according to the late J. L. Wade, who was one of the Purple Martin's staunchest advocates. They're in pretty high demand here in Canada, too.

One of only a handful of a couple hundred attempts to catch a male in a decent flight pose. The summer ain't over yet.


Slight crop for composition, NR and sharpening applied in PS, cloned a little errant breast feather/speck and the second catchlight from the flash unit.


Camera Model: Canon EOS 40D
Shutter speed: 1/1600 sec
Aperture: 5.6
Exposure mode: Av
Exposure compensation: +1 1/3
Flash: External E-TTL High speed sync 580 EX with battery pack
Flash exposure compensation: -1
Metering mode: Evaluative
ISO: 500
Lens: EF300mm f/4L IS USM
Focal length: 300mm
Subject distance: 10.8 m

[Dumay de Boulle]

This takes a fair amount of skill to catch this in flight. My only crit is there is a huge amount of noise in the bird

[Randy Stout]

John:

Nicely captured, not an easy task! Good head angle, nice to see some detail in their dark eyes.Nice tail flare as well.
Some noise showing in the darker areas. Did you have to bring this exposure up in post?
I might try just a bit more sharpening of the eye.

Good work, keep after them!

Randy

[Fabs Forns]

Not an easy bird to photograph in flight, you did great. I think the sky has too much cyan on it, adding some red should take care of that problem. It loos like you reposted, we always ask to leave the original for comparison. TFS.

[Stephen Stephen]

John I obviously didn't see the orignal post but this one looks very nice. I've tried to create images of Purple Martins at a colony at one of our yacht clubs but these birds are very fast.

This image has given me a good reason to go back and try again.

[John Haig]

Thanks all...I admit I was a a bit rushed and didn't pay enough attention to the noise...not working on my usual system at the moment.
Randy - I will try to sharpen the eye...and I did a slight levels adjustment on the bird, but it's very close to the original exposure.
Fabs, this is the original image....I forgot to attach the image in the original post. I was thinking that sky was a bit wonky...there always seems to be a shift to cyan when I add exposure beyond one stop or so.

[Myer Bornstein]

Nice capture, As I know small birds are hard to get in flight

[marco peschiera]

Nice capture, may i ask you how you can know Subject distance: 10.8 m??

[Juan Aragonés]

I agree about the noise in the bird but love the details and sharpness. This one is not easy to capture

[John Haig]

Marco, I don't know for sure...that distance is just what was recorded with the rest of the info...and I do suspect I was a bit closer.