
Originally Posted by
Kaustubh Deshpande
Gary, good job with the blacks and the sharp eye. I like the attentive pose as well. Excellent shooting angle. good thing the SS was sufficient...considering you were in a kayak.
However, I still think you should have increased the ISO to 400 at least. Black&white birds are always tricky on that front, agreed. I don't have experience with 1D mark2n....but would have guessed noise wouldn't be that big a concern at ISO 400.
f/2.8 is too wide for such close range. stopping down a bit could have given you better sharpness on the throat and the bill tip. I think the back being out of DOF range is fine.
You said 'The low light meant my lens would slow down to focus.' I don't understand the correlation of that to ISO or f-stop.
You also said 'To get a Loon you need speed. they never stay still for more than a few sweet seconds.'
Considering that and the fact that you were in a boat, higher ISO would have been better as you'd have got higher SS even if you wanted to stay wide-open.