Green Jay

[Doug West]

This Green Jay was photographed at the great Cozad Ranch
in Texas this past week at roughly 8:30am.

I probably should've used a smaller aperture because of the tail
and had a slightly more head turn.

At least it looks like I got the flash right :)

Tech Info:

Canon EOS 1D Mark II
Lens: 600mm
Aperture: F4.5
Shutter: 1/500
ISO: 400
Flash Fill: -3

Doug

[Jim Poor]

Looks nice to me. I don't think anyone is really going to notice the tail. The color in the face (oh that blue is great) will keep the attention where it should be. Does the ranch have captive birds?

[Lana Hays]

Doug
Might I assume that you posted this here because it was a setup? I'd love to get down to some of the ranches this time of year. This is definitely one bird that I'd love to see. Great color, nice pose, simple perch and good BG. The flash looks great.......very natural. I might make him a little smaller in the frame and possibly add a touch more USM. Well done.

[Doug West]

At these ranches they'll have blinds setup for morning and afternoon shots. Then the
setup is usually some kind of water hole, surrounded by perches the guides setup.
Some of the perches can even be moved.

I was at four ranches that week...Cozad, The Javelina, The Homestead and Weaver.
Its impossible to pick my favorite ranch cause each host was great.

At times, the blinds were so close to the setup, I ended up using my 100-400 more
than my 600.

If you go to: www.cozadranch.com (http://www.cozadranch.com), you'll find some samples on what these blinds
look like.

Doug

[Doug Brown]

I'm headed down to a couple of ranches this weekend! The green jay is on my list. I think you've done a great job here Doug! Excellent flash exposure compensation. A little more DOF would have been fine, but I don't think the OOF tail detracts in any way from an excellent image.