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Bob Blanchard
01-12-2008, 10:41 PM
Always a challenging bird to photograph. Captured this image this afternoon. I had traveled so much last week all over southern Florida, that I really didn't want to take any long trips this weekend. I decided to just walk a field near my home and see what I could find. I wound up spending over an hour creeping up on Loggerhead Shrikes and Meadowlarks. Both are fairly timid, but with the help of the 600L and 1.4x, I got close enough. The nice overcast skies allowed for easy exposure of the high-contrast birds.

Canon 1DsMII, EF 600 f/4L with 1.4x Extender, ISO 320, 1/160, f/5.6. Mid-afternoon under moderately overcast skies. This is about a 2.5mp crop.

http://CatcherofLight.smugmug.com/photos/242692787-X3.jpg
Gary Dietz
01-12-2008, 11:09 PM
Very nice Bob, well worth the effort of sneaking up on.
You were using alot of glass at slow speed to get a good sharp image. I really like the soft BG colors
Rick A. Brown
01-12-2008, 11:09 PM
On my monitor, the color balance looks cold, but this isn't calibrated, so take that with a grain of salt. Otherwise nice, these are a very hard species to photograph as well as those meadwolarks you were talking about.
Milo Burcham
01-12-2008, 11:32 PM
Nice portrait. I like that you can make out the eye against the black mask. Slight warming might help but looks good as is
Bob Blanchard
01-12-2008, 11:34 PM
I warmed this a bit and re-posted the image. It definitely had a slightly cool appearance to it. Looks right to me now.

Bob
Ian McHenry
01-13-2008, 12:24 AM
When I first saw this image I thought it looked a bit soft, but in this case it works well.
Like the profile angle and BG is spot on.
Tang, Chi Kwong
01-13-2008, 05:56 AM
very nices...
Glenn Bartley
01-13-2008, 11:13 AM
A very fine image of this species. Have you considered doing a bit of noise removal on just the BG?
Bob Blanchard
01-14-2008, 08:49 PM
Thanks for all the comments. I did run NR on the BG here, but may have missed a spot or two. I actually like one of the other poses from the series a bit better, and will probably use that one instead. I'd post it here, but I think that would be against the rules. I'd love to get opinions on the two side-by-side.