{"id":51114,"date":"2017-08-27T05:13:41","date_gmt":"2017-08-27T11:13:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=51114"},"modified":"2017-08-27T05:13:41","modified_gmt":"2017-08-27T11:13:41","slug":"forsters-tern-moment-of-impact-almost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2017\/08\/27\/forsters-tern-moment-of-impact-almost\/","title":{"rendered":"Forster’s Tern – Moment Of Impact (almost)"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the closest I’ve come (so far)\u00a0to catching the moment of impact of a tern diving for fish and it’s pretty darned close.<\/p>\n

Let me try to explain the difficulty of my goal. To catch them at impact you have to know (impossible) or guess (highly unlikely) where they’re going to hit the\u00a0surface and have your lens trained on that spot when they enter the water. The other option is to follow them down in the viewfinder but at the focal lengths I shoot\u00a0I probably\u00a0have a\u00a0better chance of hitting the lottery – twice, back to back.<\/p>\n

So I try to be very\u00a0quick and focus on the impact spot as soon as they hit the water. I usually fail (no bird in the photo, soft focus, bird facing away from me, etc.) and I estimate that they’re only in the water for about one second (fish or no fish) before they’re out’a there so it isn’t easy. But I’m trying!<\/p>\n

This sequence from a few days ago is my best result so far. Many of these images have\u00a0obvious flaws but I think it’s fascinating and challenging\u00a0behavior to photograph\u00a0and I’ve had so much fun with my attempts that I thought others might enjoy seeing what I’ve been up to in recent days. This is only a progress report so I decided to have\u00a0a little\u00a0fun with it…<\/p>\n

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1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 400, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

This was taken about 2.97 nanoseconds after entry (tongue in cheek on the timing of course). I think it’s an interesting photo for what I hope are obvious reasons. The vertical splash was so dramatic and high\u00a0I was disappointed that I cut some of it off up top but\u00a0a different\u00a0crop…<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

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1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 400, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

includes more of it in the reflection at bottom. For some reason I was really curious to see more detail of the bird’s head and bill – wondering if that’s really a fish I think I\u00a0can see to the right of where the bill-tip should be.<\/p>\n

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\"\"1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 400, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

A huge crop of the same image reveals that it is – with its body\u00a0shape\u00a0apparently contorted by the intense action (I think this is the first time I’ve ever posted three versions of the same image on my blog…).<\/p>\n

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1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 400, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

In the next photo in the burst the fish disappears below\u00a0water’s surface again but…<\/p>\n

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1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 400, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

several\u00a0shots later we get a good look at it.<\/p>\n

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1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 400, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Sadly I cut off the reflection in almost every image in the sequence but I guess I should be pleased that I didn’t do the same to the bird.<\/p>\n

Even though I’ve been unable to get spectacular and technically excellent images of the action so far, just\u00a0making the attempt is good training for me and I’m learning a lot about anticipating behavior in these terns. If I keep trying I could still get lucky…<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the closest I’ve come (so far) to catching the moment of impact of a tern diving for fish and it’s pretty darned close.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51116,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[338,6,334,392,1235],"tags":[3518,714,3519,3520,1238],"class_list":["post-51114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge-favorite-locations","category-bird-photography-methods","category-birds","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","category-forsters-terns","tag-diving-for-fish","tag-forsters-tern","tag-moment-of-impact","tag-splash","tag-sterna-forsteri"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/forsters-tern-2563-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-diq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}