Parking Lot Seagulls - NX30 with the NX 50-200

Today I had the urge to do some shooting and due to the recent snowfall in NYC I had to settle for a large group of seagulls hanging around a garbage pail in an almost empty parking lot.

The wind was quite strong and it was cold. I got out of my car to get my NX30 and 50-200 from my rear seat. Once back in my driver's seat, I mounted my 50-200 and decided to stay seated in my car for the shoot.

I threw some food at the birds and immediately realized that I had to move my car so that the strong breeze would be flowing from my car's window toward the birds, to get the head on shots I wanted. I circled the car to another spot without too much snow, to face southward providing me a good view of the birds with the wind flowing from me toward the birds. Yes, all this with my car's heater on and my coffee in my cup holder

Well, my files recorded my shoot lasted 15 minutes (2:11 PM to 2:26 PM), for a total of 143 shots, of which 3 were Jpeg only and 140 were Raw + Jpeg. (the Jpeg only were a result of my leaving my camera on Auto when I bag it due to a very bad habit of picking up my camera and immediately start shooting without checking my settings, yes, very stupid of me but I still do it, that is why I had the three Jpegs to start  I guess I get carried away with the excitement of the shoot.

I set single point AF, 1/1250 shutter, ISO 100 to 400 (if I remember correctly), and I pulled in my rear view mirror as it was blocking some of my view of the birds.

I threw a hand full of food to the birds, and they all came toward me. These seagulls don't catch food on the wing like beach seagulls do.  They wait until it hits the ground and either fly in or, for those birds already standing near my car just walk up and eat the food.

This is why I have some shots in flight and also on the ground.

After downloading my 143 files, I threw out 89 on the first cull. They were OOF, Poor Composition, Missed Positions, Bad Timing, Some too close for my 50-200. Not too many because of camera/lens issues.

This left me with 54 images which I ran through LR, during which I eliminated another 36 for typical reasons. This left me with the following 18 images from my 15 minute, 'warm and comfy' shoot. (Caution: I am not suggesting a non-mobile method of shooting, I really missed my movements during the shoot, but it was too cold and wet to shoot in the snow.

This was an interesting and fun shoot. I hope you like my resulting pics:

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