The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
The tern wheeled above the sea, its sharp eyes sighting the silver fish below. It dove, quick and clean, a straight shot over the water. Muscle and feather, honed by the sea’s harsh tutoring, arrowed it towards the target. There was no prize yet, but the inevitability hung in the air as certain as the sun.
Specific Feedback
Any feedback welcome.
This is my first almost in focus faster moving bird.
Interesting catch Saundie with the jumping fish and tern in pursuit. Great moment you captured. Looking at your settings, I think you could have gone with a faster shutter speed (say 1/3200s) and higher ISO. This should have helped with sharpness on the bird. Your R5 should easily handle a higher ISO. Still, a fine catch of a really interesting moment in nature.
Don: you’ve captured a moment of high action. As an alternative, consider a tighter crop to zero in on the action just a bit more.
If you’re interested, take a look at Steve Perry’s website and watch his video on shutter speed settings for birds in flight.
A wonderful catch, Saundie, with the tern and fish both in the frame. A great documentary image despite the minor technical issues discussed above. Flight shots are tough, espcially for as active a bird as this.
Thanks for the kind words and encouragement! I’m definitely going to increase my ISO next time. Venturing out of my usual genre has been quite the learning curve, demanding quicker thinking and even quicker adjustments to capture those fleeting moments. Typically, I’m more at home with landscapes, where there’s the luxury of time for meticulous planning.
The challenge of shooting terns over the textured sea really put me to the test, especially with holding focus against the constantly shifting seascape. If you have any tips on managing this better, I’d be really grateful to hear them.
Richard I will take a look at that crop as suggested, and I will watch Steve Perry’s shutter speed video.
Your advice so far has been incredibly helpful, thanks again.
Saundie, you may already do this but here are some steps I take:
one thing I do when having trouble maintaining focus on the subject is to “bump” the auto focus. I use back button focus and take my thumb off the focus button and then press it again to cause the camera to try and refocus on the subject. This is especially helpful when the subject was initially small in the frame when initially panning but has gotten larger as it approached me.
If the autofocus grabs a distraction in the frame rather than the subject, I sometimes move the viewfinder so that distraction is no longer in the frame and then bump the focus again. Hopefully the camera will focus on the subject then and I can recompose the shot while still holding down the back button focus. I have the focus options set to hold focus as a priority.
For my R7, I set the two autofocus sliders (tracking sensitivity, accel./decel. tracking) all the way to the left. I think there are similar options on the R5.
Thanks for all that, Allen. I think for the most part, I am doing much the same as you. I believe where I have gone wrong is with my slider settings. I have seen them there but have not familiarized myself with them. I will make the changes as per your suggestions and then get out there and try again. Thanks so much for the help, it saves me a lot of time reading and watching videos! I’d rather be out there doing it.
