Black Tern at Everglades Agricultural Area

[Bob Pelkey]

Heavily cropped, tripod used, would like to have added a stop or two of exposure bias as I was observing white birds in the water in the same moment, sharpening 79, exposure +55, fill light 6, vibrance +6, luminance 37, sharpen edges, unsharp mask 67%, used the Lasso Tool to outline the bird from the right side of the image for NR strength 10, manually focused (required). The light bar in the far right of the frame is a foreground reed.

This was my first occasion (Aug 9-10, 2011), as the birds are migrating south through the center of the Florida peninsula, to photograph Black Tern, Stilt Sandpiper, Upland Sandpiper, Pectoral Sandpiper, Gull-billed Tern, Wilson's Phalarope, Common Nighthawk, and Helmeted Guineafowl not previously seen in my four years of observing Florida's wildlife.

Black Tern at Everglades Agricultural Area
2 miles east of the University of Florida Agricultural Research and Education Center
Belle Glade, Florida USA

Canon EOS 5D Mark II ,Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS USM
1/3200s f/8.0 at 1200.0mm iso800

Full EXIF Info
Date/Time	09-Aug-2011 07:11:35
Make	Canon
Model	Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Flash Used	No
Focal Length	1200 mm
Exposure Time	1/3200 sec
Aperture	f/8
ISO Equivalent	800
Exposure Bias
White Balance
Metering Mode	matrix (5)
JPEG Quality
Exposure Program	aperture priority (3)
Focus Distance	40.3 m

[Stu Bowie]

Bob, I like the angled head looking for his next meal. Thanks for sharing your pp work - do I understand that you ran NR on the bird, as there is evidence of NR all over the body.

[Bob Pelkey]

Bob, I like the angled head looking for his next meal. Thanks for sharing your pp work - do I understand that you ran NR on the bird, as there is evidence of NR all over the body.

NR was not used on the bird. Ofer has advised me in the past not to use Luminance in CS5 which might have caused your observation here. I don't always use Luminance, but in this case thought it improved the image after sharpening more heavily in Camera Raw than I normally do. The post processing was done in the order and precisely as I've described. Although I have virtually all of Artie's tools to produce a great image, I've yet taken the time to research and follow his recommended workflow. All I know about editing images is from trial and error thus far. I don't use Lightroom where I think Ofer noted Luminance can be used optimally.

[Marina Scarr]

Nice flight pose and colors. I am seeing a halo around a good portion of the bird.