Marauder

[John Chardine]

• John Chardine
• Chardine Photography
• Adobe Photoshop CS6 (Macintosh)

I'm at Bonaventure Island and of course you think of gannets but there are gannet predators there too including the Herring Gull. They sometimes swoop in close to see if an egg or young chick might be available for "supper". In this image I was doing blurs with flash set to rear curtain sync. A Herring Gull came into view and I shot a few frames. The flash went off on a couple of them and I got the desired result- blur with a flash "still" superimposed. These are very challenging images for me to make and my keeper rate is dismal. Still a lot of fun though, and something a little different.

Processing involved cropping a little, increasing the saturation a little, and I sharpened the gull.

Camera: Canon EOS-1D Mark IV
Lens: EF70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM, @ 142 mm
Program: Manual
ISO 50, 1/40s, f/6.3
Exp. comp.: 0.0
Flash: on, ETTL mode, Flash exp. comp.: -2.0

 

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

John,

Greetings. That's really great. It's unusual to see such a shot with the head so clear & sharp, I'm guessing this is something of a momentary hover? The wing motion is super. Good show!

Cheers,

-Michael-

 

[Diane Miller]

Wonderful catch! I wonder how it would look with the gannets darkened a little, so the gull would jump out even more.

I'd be tempted to remove the one that's almost touching the gull's feet.

 

[John Chardine]

Thanks all!

@Michael- that's the idea of using a flash in these circumstances and syncing it to the rear curtain. You first get the blur and then the flash which freezes the action. You have to play around with the balance of the ambient exposure versus flash to get the right effect. The other thing that helps of course is that here, the head and body and not moving as fast as the wings.

@Diane- I'll try one with a darker BG, although I would like to keep a green tone in it. I tend not to remove large image elements like this but I see your point.

 

[Kerry Perkins]

Hi John, nice to see you here. Good to see a second-curtain sync shot like this, I've experimented with those too - lots of fun! You have it all working well in this image. I like the OOF gannets at the bottom of the frame, giving the image balance and telling the story. I like it.

 

[Judy Howle]

Great capture of the gull! I like the sharp head and wing blur. I would concur with darkening the gannets a little. You could use the new radial filter in Lightroom 5 if you have it, works great for things like this.

 

[John Chardine]

I'll give that a try Judy. Thanks.

 

[Jackie Schuknecht]

Great contrast between blur and sharp. Nice separation of the subject. I find blurs the most difficult shot to do well.

 

[PhilCook]

Liking very much the wispy wingtips, all the editing makes the eye stand out wonderfully and angle of main bird makes for quite a 3D look