Male Wilsons

[Keith Bauer]

Another image from the Sandia Mountains east of Albuquerque.

Canon 50D, 500mm with 1.4X TC
1/125 @ f/5.6
ISO 640
580 Flash @ -1 2/3

Self critique: I like the pose and the details on the head. Slight wing flutter caused a bit of blurring in the wing, and I wish I would have used a smaller aperture for a bit more depth.

Thanks in advance for your comments.

[Ilija Dukovski]

Very nice bird, pose too. As you said, good detail on the head.
You have blue in the cap (should be black), beak and eye, did you use flash?

[Keith Bauer]

Very nice bird, pose too. As you said, good detail on the head.
You have blue in the cap (should be black), beak and eye, did you use flash?

Dang... You are absolutely correct. Here's a repost with the blue color cast removed.

[Colin Driscoll]

Great lighting, Nice bird! Just one extra would be to remove the flash from the centre of the eye. I guess that wing movement is reaction to the pre-flash. Some birds have astonishing reflexes and can almost be flying away between the pre-flash and the main one. Be interested if anyone has an answer to this.

[Hendri Venter]

I agree with smaller aperture but the sharpness and detail on the head is very good. I like the pose and the line of the tail horizontal with the perch. I've also seen a pre flash does get their attention sometimes.

[Greg Basco]

Hi, Keith. Exposure looks really nice; good job on the flash. And I love the background. Your self-critique covered what I would have said and removing that bluish cast helped. I've found with tanagers here in Costa Rica that using second-curtain sync on the flash sometimes helps with the wing movement problem. Not always as some birds react even to the TTL pre-flash but is has seemed to help at times. Another way to avoid this would be to use the flash in manual mode. This works especially well at feeder perch situations where you have time to work out the correct power setting. I'm not sure if it would have helped you here or not but it's a thought.

Cheers,
Greg Basco

[Bryan Hix]

Keith, you covered it with you self critique and the repost took care of the black on the head. I still think it's a really nice photo. Comp and BG are good.

[James Salywoda]

Well done Keith this is a very nice shot of the Wilsons a pretty bg nice detail and eye contact.

[Paul Lagasi]

Nice photo Keith...these birds are tough to get out in the open..head sharp, well captured