Hitchcocks - 'The Birds'

[Steve Kaluski]

For those of you who can remember the film then I thought this was quite apt, scary.

A while back I had the opportunity to test some of the new kit from Canon that was coming on stream, however one that was in the bag of goodies, but had not ever thought of using was the 14mm lens. Well this location gave an excellent opportunity to give it a whirl with a flash, something I rarely use, however...

Pre setting the distance and approximate flash required it was down to the Arctic Terns to do there attack mode. It was a little hit & miss, but good fun, although the occasional peck was not such fun. Having a threatening skyline helped tremendously and I left the building in as it's a very well known location. The clipped tip of the wing is a slight pain, but I was more conscious for trying to get things to work & have fun rather than spot on with this particular shot and also the effect.

Randy, this was one of the images I was referring to in relation to your reply a while back.

Steve

Subject: Arctic Tern attack (Sterna paradisaea)
Location: UK
Camera: Canon MKIII
Lens: 14mm/f2.8 - HH
Exposure: 1/60s at f/18 ISO200 0 stop compensation with Flash 580MKII
Crop: Slight crop for presentation (original capture horizontal)

[Randy Stout]

Steve:

This is a very fun flash effect image, and I am old enough to remember "The Birds" very well. The banking pose is dynamic, particularly love the curled tail feather. The clipped wing doesn't bother me here. Nice exposure.

I appreciate the idea of leaving the building in to give the image some context. From a pure comp. standpoint, I would prefer it to be more to the left in the frame, closer to your signature, for better balance.

Now if I can just get Nikon to send along a goodie bag to me!

Cheers

Randy

[Gary Esman]

Very interesting effect here. Like it a lot. The flash on the wings really makes it pop.

Gary.

[Xander Sales]

Indeed an interesting photo! Very good shot with such short focus of 14mm...

[Karl Egressy]

Very interesting and well executed shot, Steve.

[Mital Patel]

A very different style and unique image. Loved everything about this image specially its banking pose and sharp locked focus with special effect of blur.

[dankearl]

I really like the bird, very nice effect, although I am not a fan of the shadow.

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

That's a pretty cool flash technique. I like how the bird stands out form the dark mysterious bg

[Richard Unsworth]

Great title for the post and your technique has made the bird and mood sinister as intended
one can almost hear it scream -tfs