Eastern Phoebe

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Canon 7D & 500MM f4/L
BLUBB
ISO=400
Manual exposure set with light meter
1/4000 @ f/4.0
Al Servo/AF/Eval-meter

Could be wrong about the species.


LRII-->CS4

[Thanaboon Jearkjirm]

The dark background gave me a feeling of night photography. Very dynamic pose with head and tail pointing in the same direction, feather details look very good too. Might consider doing something with the double catch light in the eye. DOF looks good here but maybe trade shutter speed for higher f number.

[Jeff Cashdollar]

TJ, good question,..did not want any higher f/stop,..wanted to kill the BG best I could (shallow DoF),..it's real busy out there.

I spent some time toning down background stuff best I could.

I might try Topaz's remask to tweak leaf on left hand side.

[kostas nianiopoulos]

cute guy u got there Jeff .

[Gus Hallgren]

Hi Jeff

Spot on with the species. I like everything about the bird, pose, feathers and color. BG could be less busy around the head. However, taking photos of stick birds, the most important thing IMHO is getting a good photo of the bird as they don't sit there all day waiting for you.

I would be very happy personally to have taken that photo.

Thanks for sharing

Uncle Gus

[Richard Waas]

Great image Jeff.... Congrats!

[Thanaboon Jearkjirm]

The link I gave you was a tutorial of Topaz ReMask, not Topaz ReMask 2, so if you downloaded the trial version of Topaz Remask 2 then it is a bit different.

Here is my quick work of using clone stamp, ReMask 2, and little edge blur. Not that clean but not too bad I think. With more time spend it probably look more cleaner, well nothing beat getting it right in the field anyway :)
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2506/4143463741_195ae6e288_o.jpg

Photoshop also have an Extract filter which looks similar to ReMask 2, don't know what's the different though.

[Oscar Zangroniz]

Great capture Jeff. Good eye contact and details. Only thing is the leaf by his chest in the BG.
Congrats

[Oscar Zangroniz]

Great re post TJ

[Katie Rupp]

Hi Jeff, what a nice pose, I love that head turn, and good details and exposure looks spot-on. Thanaboon's repost puts it over the top with that added black bg.

[Jackie Schuknecht]

Like the repost Jeff, the branch coming out of the head was a little distracting. Such a cute bird and it actually looks like he/she is posing for you.

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Great work TJ, per our conversation last night, I am practicing with Remask2 as we speak, downloaded it last night. I plan to post another picture with some if its modifications (thanks for showing me what is possible with this tool) In this case could not get it any better in the field. Jackie, was spot-on, he came down all of a sudden and landed about 15 feet from me on a branch to my far right, I could not change position. He posed about 10 times and off he went. The entire event lasted about 7 seconds. I fired 25 shots, this was one of my favorites.

[Harold Davis]

great composition, jeff!! i love TJ's repost. looks great. but, the OP aint bad either. nice feather detail. might get rid of the smaller catchlight and sharpen that eye once more.

[Bob Decker]

Really nice image. The reduction of clutter in TJ's repost definately helps. I'm jealous. ;)

[Alfred Forns]

Like both a lot and PS on the re post is really good !!!

Agree on the wide open setting for controlling the bg !!! Sweet pose and sharp !! Big Congrats !!

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Gus,

Thank you for confirming the species, I thought the species was correct but there are others who favor in shape and color. I am spending more and more time on Ornithology, just completed an eCornell class on "Bird Courtship & Behavior" and have been working on a Cornell home-study in "Bird Biology". The book is over 600 pages, it is comprehensive. I preform BBS for a local land trust in the spring and like most folks take part in bird counts.

Artie, say's to get to know birds better and it was birds and Ornithology that attracted me long before photography - sorry for rambling.

[Kerry Perkins]

Nice pose and detail Jeff! I like TJ's re-post but it lost a bit of the feather detail on the left side - a tough separation there. Good eye to see this pose and capture it! Good work with the meter and manual mode too.

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Thanks Kerry, we are playing with the new Topaz remask tool and just getting things down and dirty, not where it should be yet. Still too stiff on the edges,..just having some fun. Thanks for the good feedback. When the light is falling on a certain static range. I will often shoot it with a light meter and/or use sunny 16 or 80/80 rule,, usually does the job.