Cuban Bullfinch

[Raybel Robles]

The Cuban Bullfinch is endemic in our Island and in Cuba. The male which is shown here is fully black with a small white bar in its wing, the females are of gray color.

Not the prettiest bird but I always like to show our endemics.


D750 | 300m f2.8 | 2.0x TC

f/8 | 1/1250s | ISO 800

[Alex Becker]

Nice shot -- I like the setting, BG, and details in the black. It looks like the light was a bit harsh. To me, some of the highlights on the leaves and stem could be toned down, but very nice. TFS

[Raybel Robles]

Hi Alex,

Thank you for the suggestion, it was a bit harsh yes, normally here the sun is very bright all day long. I did as you suggested and toned down the bright areas a bit.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Nice perch with all those neat leaves. Good BG. Yes, the light was harsh but you did best you could, although I do seem to see evidence of lightening the shadow on the belly? I wish you had pointed your gear up about an inch or so, that would also give a bit more room between the leaves in top left corner and top edge. Overall pretty neat though, glad you shared an image of this species.

[Arthur Morris]

Daniel, I think that you meant down an inch or two. Otherwise and excellent image as noted above. The bird looks like an ani.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Point the gear up to get the subject down :-)

[Raybel Robles]

Hi Daniel,

Thanks for the suggestion, I did tried to recover from the shadows a bit on the belly, I went back and made it a bit less noticeable on the image just now. It was very difficult to get the bird on the perch at a perfect angle, even tho it looks still, the perch was actually swinging up and down quite drastically because of the wind, I had images with the bird on top of the frame, at bottom, half way and some not even there lol. This was the best of the bunch where the bird was more into the center and in good focus.

Arthur, the bird does look like an Ani which we have many of them here, but it is way smaller, almost like the side of a House Sparrow. :)

[arash_hazeghi]

love the pose and settings, god comments above wish the light was softer