It is carrying nesting material ripped from the reeds.
9x 4's - seriously Did Not Meet Challenge? 30x (below average (5.5) x5's)? This was taken at 5pm when African light is at it's warmest, known in the photographic world as "Golden Light"...
I did capture the entire bird in frame, not easy to do at the speed at which it was travelling and in a 450mm f/4 equivalent. However I felt it was lost in the DPC archaic 800px picture size so cropped it tighter with, I felt, a better balance. Here's the sequence, shot individually, deliberately timed shutter presses, not at High FPS.
If the tight crop comments/votes is what made this image sink from 6.2 just at rollover to 5.8 then I am at a loss with partisan DPC voters. I have tried both approaches in the past; tight crop and as shot (see thumbnail #1 above). Both styles have gotten last minute comments and I believe tied in to the subsequent drop in votes.
Despite a contrast and colour tweak and a tight crop this is "as shot" in the wild at a hide for 2 hours, sore bums and boredom waiting for something to happen in a cold bird hide mid winter. No feeders, not a zoo or a local urban lake, no tricks, no massive Photoshop rescue.
But alas the image doesn't convey any photographic effort right? What about experience?
And Langdon, it would be nice to have a "Wildlife" Category. Yep I know, prove the image was taken in the true wild right?
Here's my challenge; Recreate this WILDlife image, with panning, in motion, with the correct shutter speed on SHUTTER PRIORITY (S, Tv) only, to get a steady sharp head and blur in the wings AND blur on the water drops! I also want to see the the before and after (RAW) unedited images in numeric order to see if you burst FPS or were in single shot mode...
It's a shame this didn't do better. I like the crop as it shows off more of the fine detail and sharp focus in the right spots. I agree with your sentiments about the difficulty in achieving this fine result. But the majority who vote here do not understand this or have no interest in this subject matter. How many voters who low balled this would really take you up on your challenge? Ah the beauty of anonymity.
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