Breakfast in Bed, Elegant Tern style

I was following this Elegant Tern after it picked up a fish in a harbor and followed it to here. Timing is everything, and I sure do appreciate Continuous Shutter Speed to capture this exact moment. :slight_smile: And the fluttering wings are what make birds in flight special for me.

I’m anthropormorph-ing here (is there even a verb for this word?), but this seems like a tender moment and gesture between mates.

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Not a lot of color…it was an overcast day. I considered converting to B&W but decided to keep the orange of the bills and the water’s soft aquamarine color.

Although not all the details are tack sharp, particularly the head of the sitting Tern, and the little fish about to be eaten, I think the head of the bird flying down is sufficiently sharp to make this an appealing image overall.

Thoughts?

Technical Details

Is this a composite: No
D500 w/ 200-500 f/5.6 lens.
1/200 second, f/14, 500mm, ISO 100

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What a cool catch! The decisive moment for sure! There is a little blur (1/200 was very thin ice) but maybe you weren’t anticipating this action. It is quite forgivable in order to capture this wonderful behavior. I didn’t know the female would be in the water for the feeding ritual.

I love the color – subtle is quite believable and OK.

I don’t know your processing but I’d expect the noise to be a little cleaner or more even. Maybe too much attempt to sharpen motion blur? For me, it’s better to live with it than create the artifacts that try and fail to overcome it.

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Thanks for your comments @Diane_Miller. I used a radial filter in Lightroom to decrease the shadows for both of the birds’ heads, trying to bring out their eyes. Maybe too much lightening creating artifacts? In the Details section I increased Sharpening +76 to the overall image. Lastly, the image was too dark for me so I brightened up the entire scene with more exposure and highlights. After all that I neglected to check for artifacts and overall image quality, so lesson learned and thanks again!

It’s a great moment for sure - I’m glad you kept it in colour, as the two orange bills are surely the centre of attention (and the fish!). For me, image quality on this occasion comes way behind the action/story being shown, and I actually prefer to view this one small!

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Hi Mark
The slower shutter speed just add to the wonder of this photograph. Great shot.
Peter

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Hi Mark. I love the action and the slight motion blurs don’t bother me. From your description of the processing, the noise isn’t surprising. I suspect the main culprit is the LR sharpening, but I never mess with that panel, so I may be way off.

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Mark, the action that you’ve caught here looks great. A fine catch and a fun experience. While the sharpness isn’t perfect, it is good enough for the action to dominate the viewing and tell a good story. There is a lot of noise in the larger views, so keeping this small is probably best.

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Hi Mark! What an awesome moment you captured! I personally really love the way the wings are blurred, it looks like a painting to me. It gives it an artsy, impressionist look in my opinion. I actually think it would look really good as a black and white, maybe high key look. I was playing around with the idea, hope you don’t mind but wanted to show you my idea anyway…


You could probably do a better job of processing but just the general idea.

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@Mike_Friel , @peter, Thanks for taking a look and giving feedback.
@Dennis_Plank , I think you’re right about the LR Sharpening. I probably overdid it, and a run through Topaz Denoise probably wouldn’t hurt.
@Mark_Seaver , thanks, and keeping this small seems to be the way to go for this.

@Vanessa_Hill , Wow, I really like your hi key version. It really adds to the fluttering of the wings, making this very ethereal. I had brightened this up a lot (I thought!:grin:), but you’ve taken this to a cool new level. Thanks for your artistry!!!

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Thanks! I’m so glad you like it. I wasn’t sure how that would go over! :grimacing:

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Excellent behavior. Good job on getting both birds and focus. Nice interaction. I just returned from Iceland where we saw exactly the same behavior in Arctic turns.

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