CJ - your pic is very nice, but I think the large white outer matting overpowers it. Just for kicks try a black outer and a white inner. It sould be just enough to bring out the white of the bird.Your pic also brings up the topic of water color and texture in such shots. Check out the green hues here:
Also notice how high your loon is sitting in the water. Mine must have had sinkers for lunch.
I think that all of us should try nature photography to appreciate the effort that is needed to capture a moving object (or two) that you have no control over. My point being that it is easier to shoot an ugly house than it is to catch a chicadee.
Hi Kev, Great Loon pic! - I'm glad I'm not the only one crazy enough to spend hours in a bouncing boat trying to get pictures of loons! Mine's not nearly as nice as yours and now I have a serious case of lens envy! Here's my attempt though - pretty common shot but I'll try again.
http://www.pbase.com/cj_in_ca/image/62877605
Great picture and terrific shallow DOF - I know how hard it was to get this. :-) CJ
kevin
15-Jul-2006 13:46
I'm glad you like this. It was the culmination of four hours of following them around. You just have to take alot of shots (in this case about 400) to get to the magical moment when the focus/posing/ lighting all come together to create an image such as this.
I was about 25 feet away, as I recall. Taking into consideration the D60 1.6 sensor, the 500f4, the 1.4TC, distance and aperature, there is a DOF of about 2 inches! Not much room for error. As the focal length increases and the distance decreases the DOF gets smaller. As you open up the aperature to get a faster shutter speed to compensate for movement or lower light conditions, the DOF correspondingly gets smaller putting the squeeze on what is in acceptable focus. Somestimes it gets to be a juggling act to get things right, but when it works, beautiful things happen. Many of the shots were ruined by incorrect auto-focus on the wrong parts of the body and/or the waves.I can also blame myself for ruining shots using manual focus when I got tired of auto-focus "searching" Please, Santa, a new body for Christmas. I have been very good.
