Ashok Kandimalla - Hyderabad

Bird: Tern Challenge:

A few photographers and I were on a boat when we spotted a tern pair. One of them was incubating, but the pair was unfortunately being bothered by a cormorant. After a few warning pecks which did not do the job of sending away the cormorant, this tern moved aggressively towards its tormentor and chased it away. Then it flew a couple of loops and landed next to its mate (not in the photograph) squawking rather loudly. It sounded to me liked a victory cry, though I don’t know for sure! This photograph was taken at the Ranganthittu Bird Sanctuary near Mysore, in Karnataka.

Tech data:

This photograph was taken with a Nikon D90 and the lens used was the Nikkor AF-S VR 70-300mm lens. The image was captured handheld which is the best method when photographing action. That is why I prefer a light lens at the expense of faster (and heavier) lenses. The high ISO performance of modern D-SLRs is so good that the slow lenses are hardly a problem. The shutter speed was 1/1000. I always use

Mathew Thottungal

aperture priority and use an aperture of f/8 with this lens as that is its sweet spot. Auto ISO was used and floor (minimum) shutter speed was set to 1/1000 which is what is needed to freeze action. ISO was allowed to float to a maximum value of 1600. In this case an ISO of 320 was chosen by the camera.