Royal Terns huddled in wind

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I photographed these Royal Terns huddled against strong coastal winds on Sanibel Island, Florida. I also had my own battle with the wind, trying to keep my photo equipment from being blasted with sand. This photo was taken with my Nikon F90x, Nikon 300mm f4 mounted to tripod while on a photo workshop/tour with Art Morris in February of this year. The birds didn't want to fly due to the wind, so I was able to scoot in slowly and isolate individual or groups of birds. My favorite thing about this photo is the repetitive images, but I wish I had achieved more depth of field.

-- Donna P. Bollenbach (cassidy@icubed.net), August 05, 1999

Answers

I think the only problem with the depth of field is in the forground. Otherwise it is a nice image. It seems that my eye wants a little more to the right of the image. Maybe a little more on the left to not cut the tails off the left and birds... Very nice however you look at it.

-- Chris Gillis (cagillis@concentric.net), August 05, 1999.

Nice picture, I like this type of picture where you get this repetitive patterns. The only thing I can criticise is that I think it is too tight to both left and right. I wish you hadn't gone so close to the birds. And maybe lifted the camera so you got more birds in the background and less sand in the bottom of the picture. The depth of field doesn't bother me at all. I am not sure that a wider depth of field would make the picture better.

-- Hakan Liljenberg (coracias@hotmail.com), August 06, 1999.

This is nice but have you considered what Less DOF would do. I like the front 4 birds and shells at their feet and wish the background was less sharp.

-- Larry Korhnak (lvk@gnv.ifas.ufl.edu), August 06, 1999.

I like it Donna. I can rarely get this close to the terns up here in Jax. I like the bird to the right preening as it adds interest to the scene where they are all facing same direction. Which bird did you actually focus on as I can,t decide? Nice composition and color.

-- Jeff Hallett (franjeff@alltel.net), August 11, 1999.

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