Bold contrast

As much as I love capturing white on white, as I showed in yesterday's post, there is a lot to be said for contrast. This Japanese crane flew right over me, and the intensity of the blue sky made a striking backdrop for the black and white bird. Bird photography requires a fast frame rate so you can capture the nuances in wing position as a bird flies. I learned this a few years ago before I got really serious about photographing birds in flight. During my first Pantanal trip, one of my clients had the Canon 1Dx with the capability of shooting at 12 frames per second. I was still shooting with the 5D Mark III and 6 frames per second, and when I saw what he was getting I instantly realized I needed a new camera. We were shooting the same action -- like a kingfisher diving for a fish in the river -- but he was capturing twice as many frames and therefore getting wing positions that were better than what I was getting. So, I waited for the 1Dx Mark II to come out and I bought it. That has 14 fps. Now I don't miss anything when it comes to motion. My settings for this picture were 1/1000, f/11, 800 ISO. I didn't need a super fast shutter speed because cranes fly, seemingly, in slow motion. I shot this on the island of Hokkaido in Japan.