A few birds

[Brownbear]

And before I hunker down and get back to serious work, a few birds from my recent trip to Mexico...


Cormorant



Frigate Bird



Blue Footed Boobie



Common Tern

[Otavio]

Christina, #2 and #4 are awesome shots! I know how difficult it is to shoot a frigate bird. I never got one as good as you did here! Congratulations! And well done!

[Donald]

They are all excellent images and it's silly to say one is better than the other. But .......... that last image (Common Tern)! Well, it is just straight out of the top drawer. Focus, Composition (okay the bird helped), Exposure, Lighting, Colour - all just on the nail.

[Brownbear]

Otavio, thank you. Truly appreciated. Yes, they are a bit of a pain to photograph but I was able to get close because they were diving for fish. Of course the shots I have which include a fish, the fish is overexposed.

Thank you Donald. My improvements represent all the feedback and learning from Cambridge and its members. Yes, they are very pretty birds and fast flyers, and fantastic fishers.

[Bobobird]

Excellent set Christina.

[FrankMi]

Other than the first one blending into the background, these are BiF images I can only dream about capturing. Lovely, Christina.

[Nancy Moran G]

Agree with Donald. That Tern is gorgeous.
Now, get back to work!
Nancy

[rawill]

Agree with Donald. That Tern is gorgeous.
Now, get back to work!
Nancy

So right

[jamn4ex]

wow and wower! I love this set Christina.

[Panama Hat & Camera]

Cristina,
It is a fantastic and lovely set of pictures!
Photo #2 = WOW + WOW!
Photo #3 = WOW + WOW!
Photo #4 = WOW + WOW + WOW!

My sincere congratulations!
All the best!
Antonio.

[rawill]

Simply nothing to add from the above comments.

I guess my only question is how much cropping did you do?

[FootLoose]

As above, all great shots, Christina, but I love that tern. You have caught it in a magnificent pose.

[Stagecoach]

Hi Christina

All I can say is that I have never accomplished a bird in flight and can only imagine how hard it is.

I have noticed lately that the herons have started using the gap between my house and my neighbours as a flight path since I felled a very large tall tree but I can not work out an accurate flight schedule to be ready

Grahame

[FlyingSquirrel]

Great job. Massive improvements on all fronts- focus, sharpness, exposure, DOF, etc. Crop is too tight for me on most of them. Would prefer more space around, and in front for implied motion. Shot one, the subject blends in too much and is too far to the left. If exposed to the right (ETTR), you could open the shadows to pop the bird out, and opening shadows on shot two would bring some detail to the bird. Nevertheless, you are slamming it out of the park on the improvement aspect! You have much more experience and skill at BIF than I do! Soon I would like to hit up the beach for some practice on seagulls. Following in your footsteps!

[Clive Kirby]

Great composition on the tern. I really like the image.
Clive

[IzzieK]

I too love the common tern one -- it is perfect.

[Shadowman]

Some very good ones, the first is almost lost against the rocks, I'd go with a tighter crop or add more detail to the wing span.

[deetheturk]

Another great set Christina,well done you!

[Brownbear]

Thank you to all for your comments, truly appreciated and very encouraging for me as I've been working on my birds in flight for a couple of years and it truly nice to hear that they are coming along.

Frank, John and Matt,

Thank you for your feedback. Truly appreciated.

Frank... It was sunrise and a dark scene for a dark bird. SS 1/2000 ISO 2000! (auto iso because all my test shot readings were high and I couldn't figure it out) F8 Exp. Compensation +.67... How could I have managed better separation while photographing the scene? Through better exposure with a slower shutter speed but these cormorants move fast? How can I achieve better separation in post processing? I've seen comments on others photos about improving separation but I'm not quite sure I'm understanding this.

John,

Yes, it's too dark. I was really nervous to try to much of anything to this photo because of the high iso and dark scene, underexposed a bit I think. If I crop it I think the noise will stand out too much... How do I add detail to the Cormorant? More sharpening, lifting the midtones with the curves tool?

Matt

Thank you. Alas that Cormorant is not exposed to the right, but I do have others flying in the sky that are that I can work on. Here I wanted to see if people liked the dark scene, or not. And thank you for sharing your thoughts on this image. I set my focal point to the left of the scene because I'm experimenting with trying to get different compositions for bird and flight photos. Perhaps a bit odd.

Not enough space in the tern and frigate photo because they are not cropped (tern a wee bit from straightening) Timing and getting all of the bird in the scene without clipping is something that I am working on improving.

Seagulls are wonderful to practice on (as are pigeons) and I have no doubt that your BIF images will be stunningly perfect with a couple of days practice, they are already wonderful.

Grahame... if you have herons hanging about go photograph them... I know your shots will be beautiful. (Frank, ditto for any type of BIF)

Robin...

The cormorant image is cropped just a wee bit (if at all) on the far right side.

The Blue Footed Boobie is cropped quite a bit, about 30-40%.

The other shots are not cropped.

Thank you to everyone for taking the time to comment and provide me with some great feedback!

[Wavelength]

They are all excellent images showing your mettle; if these are your less serious works, how gonna be your serious works i wonder
Regards