On the pelican, you can see that the darker sections are the part of the bird that was exposed for the entire shot and the ghosted areas are those that the bird was only in for a portion of the shot. Look at the wings and they are much narrower than the actual wings.

I have some shots like this of people. Never really liked any of them enough to consider them keepers, but it just really depends on how the final image comes out.

We had several pics like this, this weekend when we were camping. We were in a very shaded canyon area that was causing slow shutter speeds. We actually got some pretty cool pictures with the motion blur and different light conditions.

Thanks for comments and ideas.

The great thing about a mistake/keeper like this is you don't see it until post-processing, and you get a WTF? moment.

Here's another of mine, where I only had a P&S. I was somehow hoping for blurred silhouettes, but ended up with a kitschy shot that I would never normally try and take.

Cool trippy shot! An accidental 4.5ish second exposure made this. (Was pure white at first, pulled the exposure down all the way in Lightroom)

NSXType-R said:
The panning and the slow shutter speed for 200mm would do it.

A couple of my favorite shots are mistakes.

Some mistakes are actually keepers!

+1

I personally think the photo is kind of cool.

1/80th with f/5.6 is really slow for 200mm (Actually 300mm in FX) for bird flight. Kick the ISO up to get your shutter around 1/200+.

I would say the camera moved while the shutter was open.

If it were VR, the blur would be linear (see path traced by tip of beak). If it were ghosting, the bloom would emanate from a single focal point or would vary in intensity. Neither are the case here.

>>How the heck did I take this photo ? <<

Guess you pushed the release button with your "Trigger Finger" ?? :-)

Seriously, this could also be caused by Internal reflections ( Ghosting ? ), which sometimes happens when shootinh into bright light / backlit subjects , hence this question : Do you use an UV -filter on your lenses ??

Anyways, i would also regard this one as a "Keeper" i think...

The panning and the slow shutter speed for 200mm would do it.

A couple of my favorite shots are mistakes.

Some mistakes are actually keepers!

This is one of my favourite images (full size).

It's a pelican in flight, about to dive for a fish, shot with the sun behind it. Some EXIF data:

Camera Model Name : NIKON D200
Exposure Program : Program AE
ISO : 100
Metering Mode : Spot
Flash : No Flash
Focal Length : 200.0 mm
ISO Setting : 100
Lens : 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6
Flash Mode : Did Not Fire
Shooting Mode : Single-Frame, Auto ISO
Focus Distance : 21.13 m
Shutter Speed : 1/80
Aperture : 5.6

Any ideas how I managed to get the unusual blur / multiple-exposure effect? My only thought is that it is a side-effect of the VR. This lens has since developed a fault in its VR, so maybe it was that. Or it could be that the VR was set to the normal position, not "active", and I was doing some serious panning to try to follow the bird.