Flying Away

When I was photographing the pigeon I mentioned yesterday, after I captured the photo I wanted it suddenly flew off the branch into the forest behind it. Fortunately I managed to focus onto the bird as it flew off and I got a small series of photos before it was out of sight.

I still had the camera in shutter priority with a shutter speed of 1/640^th of a second selected. This shutter speed was fast enough to freeze the action and would remove any camera shake created while panning the camera. I didn’t use the flash gun because I didn’t have enough time to remove from my camera bag and attach it to my camera. I over exposed the photo by 1/3^rd of a stop, to combat the lighting.

To edit the photo I increased the contrast and lowered the highlights to ensure the highlights didn’t become clipped. I also changed the colour tone as I thought the camera had recorded to much green in the photo for my liking. I cropped the photo as I thought the composition wasn’t very balanced, I cropped the photo so the pigeon was in the lower left hand corner of the frame.  

This photo isn’t the best quality wise but I still like it as it shows the pigeon in full flight as it takes off and flies deeper into the wood. Hopefully I’ll get another chance for a wildlife photo shoot soon, as I enjoy the challenge of moving subjects.

Mat