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Contest Finalist in Foto Digital Volume 1 Photo Contest
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TrinityHawk
July 02, 2014
This is fantastic capture. I have taken lots of photos of seagulls (sea eagles) - and this is fatastic great capture of back lighting.
wandahojan
September 25, 2014
love the feathers ... detailing on this photo is excellent ... lighting is just perfect! great job
susanneradke
February 03, 2015
Wunderbarer Schnappschuss - ich LIEBE diese Gallerie und glaube, wir lieben die selben Orte und Motive....
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Behind The Lens
Location
This photo was taken during cruising on North see. A flock of seagulls was following the ship and some passengers throws pieces of bread to the birds. This makes birds stopping in their flight for the moment to pick good position for "attacking" the bread. Still everything happened quite fast. I took more than a hundred shots to get this particular one where I got the "look" and sharpness on right spot.Time
It was some time during the day, don't remember exactly the hour. Probably late afternoon, but it was not some golden hour period. However the sun was not too harsh since we've been pretty north.Lighting
Light was clear and the day was sunny. Since I was on a ship and seagulls all came from one side, there was not much other possibilties than shooting with backlight. Because birds were moving unpredictably I used fast shutter speed (1/4000) and aperture at f2.8 without flash. The gear lightmeter did a good job and in postprocessing I only needed to light the shadows a bit.Equipment
I shoot handheld with my Nikon DSLR using Tamron 70-200mm f2.8 lens. No tripod or flash used.Inspiration
It was good opportunity to come very close to this birds while they form very different and interesting poses.Editing
Nothing special. I took this photo in RAW (what I usually do) and develop it in Camera Raw. Some correction where done in shadow parts, some contrast added and colour vibration increased.In my camera bag
I try to have all bag of equipment (camera and seven different lens) at hand if possible. But if I have only one "special mission" in mind, like in this case, I only take what I think will best suit the goal. In this case Tamron 70-200mm f2.8 lens was all I needed.Feedback
Try to do many shots from different angels (if possible). Whatch the birds behavior so that you can have at least some idea what will be their next move. Put your autofocus on continous. Birds usually moves too fast to focus them manually (at least at my age :-))I deliberately used f2.8 to get only their heads in focus and therefore made many missing shots. But few came out as they should and that was my intention. With LCD on your camera you can check the results immediately and return to the mission in case the results are not what you expected.