The revenge of the birds

[Alexei TND]

One tip of advice to all of you that i had to personally experience and suffer today.

ALWAYS have a spotter to warn you when taking photos of flying birds on the beach

Here i am, enjoying my time following seagulls with the siggy 120-400mm

Suddenly one of the little buggers flies nies and close so i trail him and happily snap away with my 40D, not really expecting any good shots from the current odd light angle but happy for a chance to practice.
Seems i was so distracted with following it and keeping it in fram that i didnt notice where he was flying
When suddenly a searing pain informs me i have just gotten the full blast of the sun with the nifty addition of 400mm of focal length

was walking around like a drunkard teh next few minutes.
and i STILL can faintly see the sun if i close my eye.
I do hope no permament damage is done, but i hope my sad painfull tale warns others to be carefull. Those birds can be dangerous in their innocent ways.

to put an emphasis to the whole fiasco i even managed to keep the release pressed wich resulted in this, enjoy;

[::John::]

ouch

[Moppie]

Cool photo though, would make a good cover illustration for "Jonathan Livingston Seagull"

[CrazieCricket]

and here I thought you were going to say the bird left some droppings on you. Would of been less painful anyway.

[Trainboy]

One of my biggest gripes about DSLR is that you can't take pictures looking straight at the sun
It's an amazing shot, and worth any temporary blindness you experienced

[Alexei TND]

Originally Posted by CrazieCricket

and here I thought you were going to say the bird left some droppings on you. Would of been less painful anyway.

haha probably

thanks peeps :P

[DozerLYP]

it hurts my eyes just looking at the picture. great shot tho.

[Welby]

Ouch but the shot looks great

[Alexei TND]

no pain no gain i guess

[Mark]

I look at the sun a fair bit accidentally, and through my 70-200+1.4 as well, I've never ever felt any form of blindness or temporary blindness

Is this bad?

[Alexei TND]

Originally Posted by pendulum15

I look at the sun a fair bit accidentally, and through my 70-200+1.4 as well, I've never ever felt any form of blindness or temporary blindness

Is this bad?

probably not. depends on the situation

by me the sun was pretty high in the sky close to its maximum brightness, and i looked at it for slightly more than half a second

close glampses wont cause any damage but can still hurt alot
its when u look at that for longer times where it gets severly dangerous to your eyes