Project Interaction: Skimmer Altercation

[Ken Lassman]

Another shot of the Skimmer's doing "aerial battles" above the nesting colony on the beach at St Petersburg, FL. Acrobatics in the air and cute chicks on the ground...fun time

Nikon D300
Nikon 300/2.8
ISO 400
f/5.6 @ 1/2500
Manual, Hand Held

[Randy Stout]

Ken:

Interesting interaction, nice sky/clouds. Generally well exposed.
When shooting interactions between the two birds, you need as much DOF as you can get, so with your camera, in good lighting like this, I would push up the ISO to 1000, back down the shutter speed to 1/1500 or 1/2000s and use the exposure flexibility to go to a smaller aperture.
Still not easy, but you want to stack the deck in your favor.

In this case, both birds look a bit soft. I find the sharpest spot is the raised wing of upper bird. Do you know where you focus point was locked?

Cheers

Randy

[arash_hazeghi]

Ken,
Very nice, I love the pose and wing position on the top guy and the fact that you got a head turn from the lower one. I think this image has a lot potential, as it is the whites are a bit hot with some parts blown and looks soft overall. I think most of the soft look comes from lack of sharpening, here is my try, I toned down the highlights and selectively sharpened the birds. working with compressed jpeg can't get much better than this but it would improve a lot if you start from NEF.



Best

[Ken Lassman]

Thanks Arash for taking the time to to make those adjustments...you are so good at processing. I am really fascinated by Randy's suggestion to bump up the ISO knowing that the D300 gets noise at 800 and higher....but will definitely try it.....next level of learning coming up!

[Randy Stout]

Ken;

To follow up on your email. The D300 is capable of good noise performance at higher ISOs if you are careful to expose to the right of the histogram. What really makes noise pop out is trying to lighten underexposed images.
I have many keeper images from the D300 at ISO 1000. I always try for the lowest ISO I can, but you have to balance all the factors to get the best shot at the image!

Cheers

Randy

[Nancy A Elwood]

Ken I totally agree with Randy! The idea is to keep that histogram to the right. I have had great successful with iso 800 and 1000, but exposing to the right is the BIG key.

[Hendri Venter]

Splendid action shot Ken. TFS

[Nico Steenberg]

Great action captured. IMG is well exposed with good colours !

[Judy Lynn Malloch]

Great timing Ken and I really like the BG with the clouds included in this image. !!! It definitely was fun !!!