Purple Martin's Majesty

[dankearl]

Taken this morning at a small workshop on the Oregon Coast led by Arthur Morris.
Arranged by BPN member, Don Nelson.
Thanks to both for a great and informative time.

1/2000
f8
iso640
600mm (300 f2.8 w/ 2X)
Handheld
Nikon D800

DSC_0607nx.jpg

[Satish Ranadive]

Fabulous image with lovely composition. Beautiful colorscheme. Loved the pose of birds with great details,nice perch too.

[Ofer Levy]

Very interesting image! The oof bird at the front weakens it a bit.

[Don Nelson]

Your strongest image posted to date. Well done!
You've learned a lot on BPN, as well as at Artie's presenations and learning field trip this past weekend.

I do agree with Ofer -- as Artie said at the field trip, he went to 1/125 at f20 to try to gain enough depth of field (f8 won't do it). be prepared to do some dust sensor spotting at f20, even with the newer auto cleaning cameras. But even with f20, your best bet would have been to make 2 images since the lower bird held its pose so long - quickly refocusing, and then stacking with layers and careful masking. Of course, that would mean photoshop (or gimp). I'm not a Nikon user - you'll have to comment on whether the Nikon software you use (only) is capable of that as well.

One more thing you should do to strengthen this existing image was pointed out by Artie on Sunday afternoon at the photoshop class when he ran across your image while showing BPN -- is to crop the bottom to eliminate those two tiny pieces of rotten piling sticking up on the left side.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Dan, great triple here, and just love the blues of these Martins - extremely fast in flight arent they. The perch actually has a bit of character, and agree to get rid of the two bits LLC.

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

good advice above. I liked it a lot. very interesting and excellent head positions on all the birds. not easy. exposure looks great. Well done.

[Arthur Morris]

Saw this last week and did not get a chance to comment. It is extremely well done: great use of d-o-f, nicely designed, a wing stretch, a good EXP, and best of all, three perfect head angles. Again, it was great meeting you and all the nice folks out there.

[Arthur Morris]

ps: I'd crop a bit off the bottom, enough to eliminate the bit of piling on the lower left frame edge. Then a corresponding crop off the right side to tighten it up.

[Arthur Morris]

PPS: heck, I am posting from the car on a sunny day--guess that that is why the front bird looks sharp enough to me. Yes to f/20 and I only had two birds (but was working much bigger in the frame).