D300 + 70 - 300 VR lens

Foggy / overcast day at Bolsa Chica

Ken Leonard wrote:
............All comments most welcome (be tough on me :-)
Ken

I'll let Witt do that.....or the Ant.
Welcome, this is a great place to be a member.....amazing, I have a GBH image almost identical to that HERE

a bit more space on right would help a lot IMO
keep 'em coming

Neat catch Ken! I like the action, but the photo needs a bit of improvement. It seems underexposed. The wings on the bird are a bit too blurred for me. You said to be tough! I think filling the frame with the bird more would help, and slightly lower angle!

Ken,

I grabbed EXIFs for people.

Nikon D300 ,Nikkor 70 - 300 VR lens
1/160s f/9.0 at 300.0mm iso200

Your shutter speed is too long. You need to get your shutter speed up. I would have shot at ISO 400 or more. You would have gotten a better shutter speed. I think the 70-300VR is fine at f/8 - - that would have gained you a tad of speed as well.

Framing is fine - but the shot needs sharpness. It's a neat capture.

Lil

I agree with all of the other comments, try to bring the shutter speeds up. I like to be over 350 for that focal length when shooting moving objects and preferably 1/500 or faster if the light/iso will allow. And f/8 would have given some more leeway that way.

On my Nikon cams I have found that in low light/low contrast situations that they under expose any where from .03-.07 stops. Play with the exposure compensation and look at the histograms to help with this. Oppositely I find that in bright light/high contrast situations they over expose to the same amount.

You didn't say how you were shooting these but I have had good luck with aperture priority and setting auto iso to a minimum desired shutter speed and working from there.

All in all i like the capture.