Seagulls

[poker_jake]

Here are a few seagulls from the other day. First time trying to capture birds in flight.

 

[Fidi]

Hallo poker_Jake,
how do you go about capturing birds in flight?

I was able to do this with my budgies even with my small compact cam Nikon Coolpix S3000, but struggled to do the same with my upgrade-cam Nikon Coolpix P510 (which has a much larger zoom and is much more luminous.
Still, the seagulls, who mostly look rather slowish, were (mostly) too fast for me to caputre in flight.
Those I did capture were rather small in the picture.

Yours look very impressive!

Best,
Fidi

 

[poker_jake]

Hallo poker_Jake,
how do you go about capturing birds in flight?

I was able to do this with my budgies even with my small compact cam Nikon Coolpix S3000, but struggled to do the same with my upgrade-cam Nikon Coolpix P510 (which has a much larger zoom and is much more luminous.
Still, the seagulls, who mostly look rather slowish, were (mostly) too fast for me to caputre in flight.
Those I did capture were rather small in the picture.

Yours look very impressive!

Best,
Fidi

Thank you, I used a Nikon 70-300mm lens between 200-300mm. I was also fairly close at about 40-50 feet and cropped the photos after.

 

[OscarWilde]

Seems you could use a faster shutter speed! It would remove the motion blur in their wings.. you'd have to compensate the exposures but it would give you more crisp pictures.

I like the timing of the second one; and the first has an interesting "pose" but I'm not a fan of the other photog in the background

As for composition, try not to center the subject so much; it makes for less interesting pictures! And if you did that in the crops than just try re cropping with different positions!

 

[poker_jake]

Seems you could use a faster shutter speed! It would remove the motion blur in their wings.. you'd have to compensate the exposures but it would give you more crisp pictures.

I like the timing of the second one; and the first has an interesting "pose" but I'm not a fan of the other photog in the background

As for composition, try not to center the subject so much; it makes for less interesting pictures! And if you did that in the crops than just try re cropping with different positions!

Thanks, the problem with 2 and 3 is the bird is the only thing in the frame. I worked with multiple compositions but unless it was centered it seemed weird and imbalanced with extra sky on one side.

As for 1 I like the tourist in the background shooting the bird, adds a little something to it.

Also, I should have used a smaller aperture to increase dof and increased shutter speed a third to two thirds stop, that's why I think the wing tips are oof. What shutter speed do you guys use for birds?

 

[Joel_W]

I really like picture #1, as the photographer in the background adds just that much more interest to your composition. Pictures 2,3, & 4 are well exposed, and sharp as a tack, but not really great photographs, as the single Seagull is the whole photo in each instance.

 

[poker_jake]

I really like picture #1, as the photographer in the background adds just that much more interest to your composition. Pictures 2,3, & 4 are well exposed, and sharp as a tack, but not really great photographs, as the single Seagull is the whole photo in each instance.

Thanks, I agree with 2, 3, and 4 being boring, but it was fun to shoot them. Took about 60 shots and I was suprised to see about a 50% turnout rate (mainly sharp focus and nothing cut off, not necessarily good composition)