My first post

[John Zimmerman]

I will try to become active member, no guarantees. Here is a photograph I took a few days ago.

[John Zimmerman]

Hi and welcome John,

Thank you for taking the time to post you image. Looks like you photographed this Cardinal almost at night. I think you did very well with your flash technique by not over exposing your main subject. There are several white spots around the Cardinal that can be easy remove in Photoshop allowing you to present a more "cleaner" image and not taking away from your main subject. The perch does not bother me at all.

Keep up the good work and keep posting![/quote]
Thank you for your comments . The shot was taken in the late afternoon. The background was dark. the white spots were caused by snow that was falling.

[Fabs Forns]

Big welcome John!

Love Cardinals, they are beautiful birds!

Wish you would sharpen it a tad more and since there's not that much snow visible, get rid of the few flakes.

Very nice composition and looking forward to more from you :)

[Alfred Forns]

Sorry John ..... we are not familiar with snow !!!!

Would be helpful to have tech info A bit of flash would sure bring out some color in the bird I like the feel Excellent !!!

[John Zimmerman]

Thanks for the suggestions. I took away the snow, sharpened the image a bit more.

I was using a 1Ds Mark II with a 100-400 IS lens. It was at 400mm 1/800 at F/5.6 with a 580 flash (400 ISO).

[Anthony Medici]

John, Your real issue under these conditions is the flash. I've never had luck showing snow well when using a flash. Flakes close to the camera turn into big bright distractions and never really look right. In this case, your shutter speed is high enough that the flash is putting out multiple pulses which might not help things either. Also, flash in this image looks like main light which might be why the background is so dark.

For images with snow, I'd slow down the shutter speed so that flakes will take on motion. And I'd try to bring the flash down to fill at an EV or two below ambient. You'll need to watch subject and camera motion at those speeds so you'll need a cooperative subject.