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Karl Egressy
03-31-2009, 07:23 PM
This is the time to take pictures of singing Blackbirds.
They come abot two weeks earlier than the female to establish a breeding territory.
Taken at a little marsh just outside of Guelph, where I live.

Canon 50D
Canon 500 F 4.0 L IS
plus 1.4x TC
Hand held
ISO 320
1/800 sec
f 5.6
exp comp + 1 1/3

http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc29/karlo1789/IMG_2896v.jpg
Kim Rollins
03-31-2009, 07:31 PM
Karl -

They just showed here and I noticed some are not strutting yet and lack very bright colors. I know that will change soon and probably in just a few days if it would warm a bit.


I have just seen a few till today and looking out at a feeder by the front fence there is probably 50 male and female making a raid.

Well done and yes it is time to start imaging them. :)
Grady Weed
03-31-2009, 07:41 PM
We do not have any yet that I have found. We still have a lot of frozen ponds and lakes. I do like these birds and they make great subjects. I like the details in the blacks and the exposure seems OK.
Randy Stout
03-31-2009, 07:55 PM
Karl:

A very handsome bird, nice plumage. On my monitor, there didn't seem to be a lot of detail in the red, so I checked in NX2, and the jpeg does show some blown highlights in the red channel. Might I suggest desatting the reds a few points, might bring back a bit of detail, and make the image even better.

Randy
Daniel Cadieux
03-31-2009, 08:22 PM
I agree with Randy's assessment on the epaulette. The deepest blacks seems a little washed out and there is a colour cast on the bird (a little on the reddish side). In the repost below I reset the black point in Levels and this has fixed both of these issues in one shot (would do a better job on some of the now blocked blacks with a full size file, but this gives you an idea...). Harsh light didn't help you here. I do like the pose. and the typical perch for these guys :-)

http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w98/dancad/IMG_2896v1.jpg
Karl Egressy
03-31-2009, 08:33 PM
Thank you all.
I like the repost. It does look better.
I will look into it and try to fix it, thanks.
Ed Cordes
03-31-2009, 10:12 PM
Cute pose with the beak open. My first impression was that it was an over flashed image. The re post is better, but it still looks a bit harsh. Must have been less than ideal light.
Ramon M. Casares
04-01-2009, 06:18 PM
Love it, repost is better IMO. Great pose, light, detail, BG, comp and colors! Congratulaitons!