Midway Tidbits - 18 November 2011
Mating Layson Albatross - Midway Island, North Pacific
By far the biggest challenge in this image other than shooting the peak action was exposure. What we have here is a situation where the subjects are in the shadows while the uninteresting background is in very bright daylight. The back ground is easily distracting from the subjects.
I tackled this by making sure I didn't over-expose the background like my high tech Nikon D3 meter wanted to do. Then on my computer, I brightened the darker portions--i.e. the birds--slightly on my computer during post processing.
These birds are all of five feet away from me. In fact when the male on the right fully stretched his wings, his wingtips almost touched me. Clearly I wasn't much interest to them.
In-flight Layson Albatross - Midway Island, North Pacific
I used to use a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens. Since converting to mostly full 35mm framed shooting--i.e. my Nikon D3--I found the lens wanting and sold it. At Midway, I found that focal length perfect when I used my 20 year old 180mm f/2.8 fixed focal length lens. The problem was that lens auto-focus system was of a mechanical design meaning it wasn't quite fast enough as my other higher-tech lenses I would've used when shooting birds in flight. As a result, many easily photographable bird shots were lost. The lens was simply too slow.
When I return to Midway, I'll use a borrowed 70-200mm f/2.8 lens with hopefully better success. That's not saying I wasn't happy with what I have. It's only saying I'm hoping to maximize my opportunities during these rare, once in a life-time opportunities.
Layson Albatross Portrait - Midway Island, North Pacific
With bright cloudless skies there's only a very short time where the photographic challenges disappear with the arise of nice even light you might see with an overcast. In this case, the sun just dipped below the horizon eliminating all harsh direct light and unwanted shadows.
This perfect light is very short, maybe only minutes. Having a good subject like this bird to take advantage of such circumstances is always a blessing.
