Chaos

[Morris Altman]

D200 + 80-400 VR @ 400mm, ISO 800, 1/80, f 5.6, fill flash(SB800 + better Beamer)

For my first post on this forum I’m going with my favoritephoto from last year. It was taken atNickerson Beach on Long Island’s Long Beach Island in September on a cloudymorning just before sunrise. I wassitting about 15 feet from the colony of black skimmers when a jogger camealong scattering them.

Comments and suggestions welcome,

Morris

[Randy Stout]

Morris:

A big welcome to BPN. this is a great place to learn and grow as a nature photographer.

Well chosen title, it does seemed frenzied, with enough blur to suggest motion but the birds still clearly recognizable as skimmers.

Well exposed. Always a challenge on how to frame this type of image. In a perfect world, I prefer not to have a bunch of birds cut off at the frame edges, but that is really tough with flock pictures.

Again, welcome aboard!

Cheers

Randy

[Marina Scarr]

Welcome to BPN, Morris. I have to admit that I like this photo more than i thought I would when I saw the thumbnail. There is a little bit of dead space in the middle of this one. Wonder if you have any other images from the same sequence that might work even better than this one. I don't mind the birds being cut off on the left side of the frame. What draws my eyes it those on the bottom right where you don't see any heads but just wings. Like your idea and where you were going with this.

[Morris Altman]

Thank you Randy,

One must watch out for being too strict with compositional guidelines, cutting off on the edge of the frame is a good place to start, yet doing this can tell more of the story as in this case as it shows there are many more birds. I do appreciate your thoughts and the time you took to comment.

Thank you Marina,
I agree about that little bit of dead space. Possibly it is a place for the center bird to move to, it depends on how you see it. Of the 7 frames from this blast off this one flowed the best for me.

Morris

[gail bisson]

The colors are appealing in this blur. I wonder if you have more room below and RHS to avoid cutting off the beaks,
Gail

[Morris Altman]

Thank you Gail,

This photo is close to out of the camera. The only editing was curves to increase contrast, noise reduction and sharpening. Therefore I have no wiggle room in the composition. This happened incredibly quickly and with about 200 birds blasting off at the same time I’m thrilled I was able to compose a few frames that made compositional sense. It was all over in a flash and then I was sitting on the beach and thinking wow!

Morris

[arash_hazeghi]

welcome to BPN Morris. BPN is the best forum on the net to receive professional critique and improve your photography! Please consider becoming a full member to take advantage of full benefits.

Great idea and a nice execution, the main issue here is that there is nothing sharp in the frame to provide an anchor point for the viewer. If you synchronize your panning with the flight trajectory you can get the eye/head reasonably sharp but still have the nice motion in the wings. The birds that are partially clipped at the edges of the frame are a bit distracting as Randy suggested.

A better way of capturing the above would be to go slower SS (1/20 or slower) and then use 2nd curtain flash mode to create a motion trail while getting the head/eye sharper.

TFS, good job

[Morris Altman]

Thank you Arash,

There would be a lot more wing blur at 1/20^th. It is an interesting idea.

Morris