Northern Cardinal

[Fred Johns]

I purchased Alan Murphy's eBooks on songbird photography a couple of months ago, and decided to try and put into practice the techniques he describes (Great books by the way). I set up a tray feeder on my property and created a perch from some old driftwood. The sun was close to setting and I thought it would provide great light on my set-up. As I sat patiently (OK - not so patiently :bg3:) waiting for a bird to come down to my perch and pose perfectly for me, I heard the wit, wit wit song of this Northern Cardinal in a nearby tree off to my right. Fortunately he was willing to wait for me to reorient the camera and take this shot. Cropped slightly and processed in LR6.

152563
D4, 500/4, 1.7 TC, f/8, 1/1600, ISO 1600.


Thanks,
Fred

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

To my untrained eyes it appears a little too saturated. With perch selection, I'd be careful to ensure that I pick one perch as opposed to one with other branches that may obscure parts of the subject. A tad more room below the tail would be ideal too. :)
You have some nice opportunities there I think and a bit more consideration will yield even stronger results.
Well done, great effort and you have a nice pose with a good HA.
Love Alan's books too. He is the master at that kind of set-up. There's no other.

[Raymond Barlow]

Beautiful shot Fred., I do understand this was not a prepared perch, so great luck in finding a sweet natural view. I would suggest you under expose these bright red birds, then work on the raw file
to find just the right colours, and exposure. You can also back up the reds in ACR., somewhat effectively.,

Hope your doing well, hope to see you all up here again some day.