Sky Watch Friday VII

Long-tailed Jaeger having fun.

Photograph taken on the tundra of the North Slope in Alaska.

Long-tailed Jaeger (Stercorarius longicaudus)
(Click to see more detail in the silhouette)

We were about 10 miles from the Arctic Ocean when we noticed a storm approaching. The jaegers were diving, swooping and just having fun on the approaching winds. Storms are interesting in the summer in the Arctic. This makes for some great skies.

Martha watched the jaegers while I made camera adjustments.
In order to capture this photograph, I set my camera on 1000 ISO, f16, and manual focus.

I wanted a deep depth-of-field to show the clouds. I waited until the bird came around and used follow-focus on the bird. When he was against the right background, I snapped the photo. The long central tail feathers are visible in the enlarged photo (click to see).

There were only two adjustments to the photo that I had to make.

I used “Neat Image Pro” to remove the grain (noise) due to the high ISO.
and
I adjusted levels in Photoshop.

Note: We saw all three U.S. Jaegers that day. Wheee-hooo.

To play Sky Watch Friday visit Wiggers World.

Troy and Martha