Phalaropes in Flight

Gallery: AvianPosted July 28, 201279 views5 comments

Two Wilson's Phalaropes (Phalaropus tricolor) in breeding colors photographed in May of this year. The one on the left is the female.

I like this capture because it has two birds in the frame and both have a catchlight in the eye and the fuzzy BG illustrates th efast action. The birds came in over my left shoulder. I was focused on the action (or lack thereof) in front of me and saw the birds at the last moment.

Canon 7D, Sigma 150-500 at 340 mm, ISO 1000, f/11, 1/2000 sec. PP in LR4.

The capture is cropped to 56 %. This is more than what I would like but I have no more pixels at the right to relax the crop without moving the birds too far into the frame.

Thanks for looking. C & Cs are always welcome. Roger.

Comments

5 comments

Comment posted by Philip Hodgkins on July 28, 2012 at 7:59 PM

The birds look well detailed considering the crop, with just enough wing blur to indicate movement. While the BG is no noisier than expected, and LR probably took care of the worst of it, a little selective NR wouldn't hurt. I know there was probably no time to reset, but still a wider opening could have given you a bg with better blur.

Registered on July 24, 2006, 2741 Posts, 12349 Comments

Comment posted by Jim DeWitt on July 28, 2012 at 8:31 PM

Good reflexes! Nice job on two small birds in flight. The background is a bit distracting – the out of focus reeds, especially - but then the birds didn't give you much choice.

Registered on August 28, 2006, 1240 Posts, 8506 Comments

Comment posted by Mike Ramy on July 28, 2012 at 11:10 PM

Roger,
Outstanding capture and for shooting from the hip action, well done. The two subjects and the different wing positions is very nice, the crop is perfect, IMO.
The reason for the focus on the far wing and the blur on the closer wings is the same situation I am having with my 7D, and since you where shooting at 1/2000. AF selected that point of movement for the far wing in the Auto Select 19-point Mode at the moment of capture, as well as the head and bodies of the birds. This is a nice feature, to determine movement and a selling point for my purchase of the 7D. However, I have found that at a certain speed and faster of the camera motion, when following a moving subject, will confuse (for a lack of better term) the AF and movement of the subject will be interpreted as BG. Maybe someone can give us some advice on this.

Registered on June 16, 2012, 567 Posts, 2809 Comments

Comment posted by David Haynes on July 29, 2012 at 10:22 AM

Roger,
Great timing to capture this shot. I really like that you have both of them sharp and in the frame. Wish they were coming towards you instead of going away but you take what you're given and this is a great shot. Beautiful catch light, great poses and wing positions and it shows the speed at which they were traveling. Super.

Registered on February 20, 2010, 110 Posts, 1511 Comments

Comment posted by Roger Kirchen on July 31, 2012 at 11:15 PM

Thanks for your comments on the picture and on the technical aspects. I'll have to try NR on the BG. I did spend most of the PP on the birds.

Mike, thanks for your observations regarding AF. I have not found an AF setting that I really like for flight shots. I have tried with the autoselect (19 points) and the 3 by 3 matrix as well as centerpoint with auxiliaries (or whatever it is called officially). Sometimes the AF works fast and well, sometimes it just hunts. The lens is not the fastest focusing and I have ascribed the erratic behaviour to the lens, but maybe it has to do with shutter speed. I have set C1 for static shots, C2 for my "standard" BIF shots and C3 for trying things out (it's usually a slight modofication of C2).

Registered on March 6, 2011, 95 Posts, 847 Comments