January 22, 2006
From Greenland to the Flaggy Shore
Brent Geese over Galway Bay at dawn this morning, near the stretch of Clare coastline known as the Flaggy Shore. These birds winter along the bay after migrating from Norway and Greenland. With temperatures dropping to -60 degrees C in Siberia, and harsh conditions prevailing in most of Scandinavia and central Europe, we can expect to see more migrant species take refuge in Ireland (the ones that survive, that is).
What effect was used for this photo ?
The short answer is the "Taking an out-of-focus shot" effect but it's a little more complicated than that. In the early morning light this morning, I had to shoot with a fairly low shutterspeed and a shallow aperature (1/100 and f6.3). I used a 70-300mm Image Stabilised lens which allowed me to shoot at 300mm at such a low speed without blurring (the effective focal length is actually 480mm because of the 'multiplier' effect of a full frame lens on the Canon350D. Even so, the image wasn't entirely sharp when I enlarged it on the computer . To be honest, I only took the photo so that I could identify the birds afterwards, and to alleviate the boredom of sitting among the rocks on the shoreline waiting for something to walk by.
The original photo is of a larger number of birds, but I liked the composition of four birds close together (pure accidental composition). The shot was naturally grainy (the camera was set to ISO800) so I increased the contrast slightly to enhance it and desaturated the image to give more focus to the shape of the birds.
Twenty years ago, I'd have printed this on Agfa Grade 3 B/W paper to get the same effect and it would have taken me about 3 hours to get it right. Of course, twenty years ago, I wouldn't have had anything else to do, but that's another story.
galway,clare, ireland, irishblogs,monasette,photoblogs
Posted by Monasette at January 22, 2006 10:13 PM