Australian White Ibis

Australian White Ibis (Image ID 49063)
Photographed byNathan Watson on Sun 10th Oct, 2021 and uploaded on Mon 15th Nov, 2021 .
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ID49063
CommentAustralian White Ibis, more un-affectionately known as ‘Bin Chickens’, are not the most attractive birds and have adapted to cities and towns across the country. Despite their lack of appeal, I’ve been looking for ways to get a different and artistic perspective of these much-maligned birds.
On an early morning visit to our local urban wetland, I used a slow shutter panning technique to capture the motion of flight.
To add an extra creative element and challenge to the image, I chose to backlight the bird as the sun rose. Backlighting is generally most effective against a darker background so I positioned myself to use a shaded bank of trees as the backdrop.
It was almost 7am when I took this image, still relatively early, but to achieve the show-motion effect I was after I chose a very slow shutter speed of 1/8.
Using a slow shutter speed lets in a lot of additional light and the risk of over-exposing (clipping) the whites was high, especially with the backlight on the bird as well, so my aperture and ISO settings were essential to achieve the desired result and not just end up with a white blob.
First I set my ISO to its lowest setting, 100, although this alone was still not enough to reduce all that extra light coming into the lens, so I set my aperture to a very narrow F32.
This aperture served two purposes – achieving the correct exposure of the whites and also retaining high definition of the bird’s flight feathers, the extra detail accentuating the sense of movement of the wings in the final image.
Eventually an Ibis flew past at close range with a small strand of grass still stuck to the tip of its bill and I was able to get this image.
Slow-shutter motion is one of the more challenging bird photography techniques, and it requires patience, practice and an element of luck as one has to be prepared to discard a lot of frames in the pursuit of a good shot!
EquipmentCanon EOS 1DX MKII, Canon 500mm F4 IS L II, F/32, 1/8, ISO 100 and post-processed using DPP4 and PS.
LocationAlbany, Western Australia
Keywordsin flight, adult, creative image
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