I photographed this rhinoceros hornbill in flight at the Bali Bird Park in Bali, Indonesia. They have several shows each day where they fly some of their exotic species of birds, and this is a great opportunity to take pictures that would be extremely difficult in the wild. I replaced the background, of course, and I used the burn tool in Photoshop to darken the environment somewhat so all of the attention stays centered on the hornbill. Usually I shoot birds in flight with a shutter speed of 1/3200th of a second, but large birds don't flap their wings as fast as smaller birds. Therefore, in a situation like this, you can get away with a slower speed so the ISO is lower. I used 1/1600, f/5.0, and 1600 ISO and was happy with the results. When taking action shots of birds, it's impossible to creatively choose a background. All you can hope for is a sharp picture of the bird. Backgrounds can be pasted in after-the-fact.
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