Another flight shot, and again of a Common Tern, yet a completely different image. This was taken on a very cloudy and windy day with a dull sky and little to no contrast. Perfect circumstances to try high key flight shots of white birds, such as terns.
I increased the ISO to 1000 to get a fast enough shutterspeed and exposed to the right. By doing so, I kept noise levels to a minimum. Only in the black cap of the tern some noise is visible, but by increasing the black levels and contrast in postprocessing, it almost disappears. Who says you need sunlight to create nice photographs?
The fact that it was a windy day helped a lot, as the terns would occasionally hover against the wind in about the same spot for a few seconds. I am happy with the series of highkey images I got on this day, they are a fine addition to the regularly lit flight shots and the silhouetted flight shots such as the one on the frontpage. So again: don’t stay at home whenever there’s no warm sunlight, there’s always something creative possible. Had the light been even worse, I might have tried highkey pan blurs at slow shutterspeeds. Well, maybe next time.
Common Tern; Canon 1D Mark III w. 500/4 IS and 1.4x; 1/800s at F6,3 and ISO 1000; Handheld