Canon Club Challenge winner: Capturing speed in a wide frame with Robert Brezigar

The challenge, Capture speed in a wide frame, was set by Jean-baptiste Liautard, who's renowned for freezing split‑second action with precision. The idea wasn’t just to show motion, but to leave breathing room around it so the viewer feels the space, the direction, and the energy of the moment.

The winning image, with the most votes from fellow Canon Club members, is by Slovenian photographer Robert Brezigar. Titled Touching the Surface, it captures a white egret in flight, skimming so close to the water that its wingtip briefly makes contact. It's a tiny detail but it makes the shot special.

Robert’s shot wasn’t carefully planned. It was taken on a quiet morning when nothing much was happening… until suddenly it was.

It was during a spontaneous photo outing in Škocjanski zatok Nature Reserve, near Koper, Slovenia. Robert and friends had originally gone out to photograph a kingfisher – a bird he hadn’t seen there before and was eager to capture. It was early, the sun was still low, and that ended up playing a big role in the making of his shot.

With the light skimming in at a shallow angle, the water stayed dark. Better still, there was no wind, which meant a calm surface and clean reflections.

After a while, because of the lack of action, Robert's friends moved to another location, but he stayed behind. He started watching a group of great egrets in the distance, searching for food.

Then the moment happened: one of the egrets lifted off and flew low over the water, heading straight towards him. Robert didn’t have time to think through his options. He’d already set his exposure, so he simply reacted instinctively and brought the bird into the viewfinder and fired a burst.

Robert’s approach is a good reminder that action photography is more than just setting a fast shutter speed. It’s about being ready, keeping your exposure under control, and giving your autofocus the best possible chance to do its job.

Robert always shoots RAW, because it gives him headroom to refine the image post-shoot, and for this shot his settings were 1/1600 sec, f/4, ISO 1250.

He used Canon’s Fv (Flexible-priority) mode on his Canon EOS R7. This mode combines Auto, Program, Tv, Av, and Manual modes into one. The benefit is, it lets you take manual control of any exposure setting at any time, or hand it back to the camera when conditions change. In this case, Robert set everything manually.

Robert’s main guide was the histogram in the viewfinder. He lowered ISO to keep the whites safe, which is especially important with a bright bird against a dark water background, while still pushing exposure as bright as he could without clipping. The reward was a crisp and detailed subject, while the water behind the bird drops into a deep, clean tone that makes the action pop.

As for autofocus, Robert shot with Servo AF, Animal subject detection and Eye AF. Tracking was set to Case 2, and his AF area covered the whole frame, so the camera could acquire the bird quickly as it came toward him.

He also used Electronic 1st curtain shutter and a burst rate of 15fps (High-speed continuous shooting +). Lens stabilisation was set to Mode 1.

Robert captured 10 frames in total. “This shot is the second in the series and all of them are pin sharp,” he notes. He says he's so confident in his EOS R7’s AF system that the real challenge getting this shot wasn’t focus – it was keeping the subject framed.

Robert shot his winning image with a Canon EOS R7, paired with a Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS USM lens, plus a monopod. Thanks to an EF-EOS R Mount Adapter, the EF lens works with no loss of quality or functionality on the camera's RF mount.

Because the EOS R7 has an APS-C sensor, Robert’s 500mm lens gives the same field of view as an 800mm lens on a full-frame camera, which is ideal for distant wildlife and smaller birds.

And with his lens weighing around 4kg, the monopod makes his setup easier to handle for longer periods, especially when you need smooth, controlled movement to track a subject in flight.

• Look for calm water (no wind) so you get reflections.
  
  
• Shade can help, as darker water makes the subject stand out.
  
  
• Watch your exposure and protect the highlights in white feathers using the histogram.
  
  
• Shoot at the highest burst rate you can, so you don’t miss the split second.

Head to Canon Club to enter the next challenge – or, you can vote for your favourite images even if you don’t submit an entry yourself.