blue

[pat lillich]

trying to sort thru pictures from trips and get rid of a few thousand "learning" efforts... and came across this tern from the flight workshop with Doug Brown and Jim Neiger last spring --- loved the fan of the tail and the blue of the upper wing...
wish I had had more lens, or it had been closer - should have been sharper.

nikon d300, 300mm f/2.8 with tc at 420 mm, 1/2000 sec at f/7.1 iso 400, 0ev
cropped and a little recovery done in LR, added canvas to the right in CS5, shadows and highlights to try to bring out more detail in the whites, plus noise reduction and a little selective sharpening. blended the background where it was added on a bit with paintbrush too.

[Doug Brown]

Hi Pat. You definitely nailed the sharpness here, and the exposure looks good. The water BG looks great too. As Peter said, it's always nice to get the bird while it's coming towards you.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Whadya mean should have been sharper? The face is tack sharp! If you are talking about the far wing that is simply a DOF issue that doesn't matter to me when the important stuff, such as the face, are plenty sharp as you have here. Good exposure control. Love the swooping upper wing. Head turned a wee bit away, too bad. Cropped just a bit too tightly IMO, personal taste as I almost always prefer looser comps. Overall very well done:cool:

[Paul Guris]

Personal taste, but I would have preferred that the left wing be more in focus than the front simply because it shows so much larger. The right wing, head, bill, and body are all great, but the tail details jump out at me as just incredible.

All in all, it's a gorgeous shot of an Elegant Tern.

[pat lillich]

thank you for your help, really appreciate it!

Daniel - you are right, i misspoke - so like you all said, I wish that i had had more depth of field because the toes aren't quite as in focus and that back wing sure needed more.

Doug (and Peter) - this was from the mad scramble at the spillway at Bolsa Chica - and the skill/art of clicking the button quickly enough is definitely something i have to work on.

Paul - thank you for the id - I looked at my guide book, but wasn't sure if this was an older youngling whose legs hadn't gone completely black or what.

still so much to learn. thanks again!

[Paul Guris]

"Older youngling?" I think that may have just found a permanent place in my lexicon!

FYI, I identified the bird as Elegant Tern first by the bill. They tend to be paler than Royals and much paler than Caspian, with a very long, thin, and evenly decurved look. Royal's bill is thicker at the base, usually shows an angle in the lower mandible, and is not so evenly decurved. Caspian's bill is a block compared to this, usually with a small dark mark.

Again, gorgeous shot. I'm having a heck of a time trying to learn how to photograph birds like this without blowing out the whites.

[pat lillich]

Hey Paul - that is a technical term, only the very aphasic get to use it! very cool - I'm saving your identification of the different bills - I had been stumbling with superficial things like leg color and the head-top color(s) and types of feathers, and it wasn't working well for me.

re not blowing the whites - I've thrown out over 2000 shots so far from that trip - I'm really happy too that a few turned out ok!

I'm not real good at choosing the very best pics, the ones that really do everything as close to all right as possible - because funny things catch me - the blue of this one's upper wing and delicacy of the tail --- a golden reflection in the water behind a bird that wasn't full frame enough -- the alien look of skimmers staring at you but the water droplet from the bill isn't quite in focus, a silly upside down backside of a diving tern with beautifully in focus feet but no head - stuff that i really enjoy, but each has fatal flaws. I'm trying to remind myself that i just have to keep trying to get more shots and maybe i'll get another chance to do each of these more perfectly.

[Daniel Cadieux]

re not blowing the whites - I've thrown out over 2000 shots so far from that trip - I'm really happy too that a few turned out ok!

Pat, not so fast with trashing your images...if you photograph in RAW (please say you do!) check out this thread:

http://www.birdphotographers.net/for...?75313-Why-RAW

[pat lillich]

hi Daniel - yes, i'm really fortunate to have my husband teaching me and he was determined that I would learn to do things right. So I definitely shoot Raw.

And I didn't mention that i still have another 2500 or so images from that trip that I haven't finished weeding out yet. :o

Its a space issue, isn't it? I am trying to learn to look at an image and ask would i ever want to print this image? (urm - not that we are printing much yet - still another thing I need to learn) and if not - toss it out. and then i fudge and keep the ones like i mentioned above that i love anyway! so i still end up with hundreds of borderline images - haven't learned the discipline to take it down to 10s yet.

but you are right - the drawback is that as i learn more about post-processing - i know i've tossed a few that i wish i hadn't.

all the more reason to go take more pics!

[Bill Dix]

Terrific image, Pat. Nice and sharp to my eye. I love the wing position framing the head, the slightly open bill, and the water BG is lovely.