I got excuses…

It was windy…it was cold, too cold to hold the camera still.. it was cloudy…the road noise was distracting me… heh yeah well none of these really work, I just got a bad shot. I knew full well when I started this whole 1 shot on the walk thing that there would be bad days and I guess today was the bad day, there’s always tomorrow. I shot this one with a fixed focal length lens 100mm at ISO 100 f9.0 @ 1/320 sec. So heres the real story behind this image…I took the 100mm lens with the intent of shooting a cropped landscape but at the last minute decided to shoot the gulls that were riding the wind coming up the side of the cliffs. they were all making really neat formations as they caught the same updraft, thats how I caught these four together.

So whats wrong with it? well I used one shot focus on a moving target..a big no-no. If I had thought to switch to servo the gulls would have been in better focus. The one shot focus deal is great for non moving things because by the time the camera gets the focus nailed and you press the shutter release down the subject has moved and therefore isn’t in focus anymore. Ah well live and learn and this whole excersise  is certainly causing me to go over the mental laundry list twice  before I hit that release and take the shot. The wind was of course complicating things as well they were moving fast I was moving fast to get the shot before they broke formation etc etc… I also would have liked it if they had been facing me instead of taking four bird butts.

So for next time, I will plan ahead if I am taking a moving subject and ensure my cameras set correctly, and hand holding the 100mm is a bit tough that can certainly lead to blurring as well.  Shooting moving subjects with a tripods pretty tough so next time I will likely bring a monopod and give that a shot.

Until next time.