Long Island Blizzard Aftermath....

[Arthur Morris]

I made it to Morton NWR this morning. Folks are encouraged to feed the birds there. Amazing. Using the principles on Alan Murphy's Songbird Set-Up Guide I created this Black-capped Chickadee image while in the process of freezing my feet into twin blocks of ice :)

Canon 800mm f/5.6L IS lens with a 25mm Extension tube and the EOS-1D MIII. ISO 125. Evaluative metering +1 1/3 stops: 1/250 sec. at f/11 set manually. Fill flash at -1 stop.

The biggest problem all day was head angle; the darned birds were always looking down at the seed :)

Don't be shy; all comments welcome.

[Bryan Hix]

Beautiful chickadee. I love the snowy perch. Just got my copy of Alan's CD. Today I was in search of good perches and can't wait to start trying his techniques.:)

[Randy Stout]

Artie:

The perch, pose and head angle all look good. I wish I could see just a bit more detail in the blacks, but it would take exceptionally soft light to show that in these fellows, I would think.

Cheers

Randy

[Harshad Barve]

Beautiful pose , BG , perch , snow flakes and lovely bird Guruji, As CD's reaching homes , I am sure we are going to see lot of set up images
TFS

[Ofer Levy]

Pretty image indeed!

[Susan Liddle]

I love the Chickadee, the exquisite detail in the feathers, perfect head angle, the characteristic bright cheerful eye. The snow all around the branch is wonderful; to me it denotes the power of the preceding storm. Something bothers me about the perch, however, and I think it is the color. I am accustomed to seeing winter branches in a browner or grayer color.
I hope the twin ice blocks have thawed.

[ChasMcRae]

Nice job with exposure of whites and PP of them.
Nice HA and feather detail-phot projects the cold emotion.

[Paul Lagasi]

Welcome to our world Artie..cold feet are a norm...I like the way the snow covered branch arches through the image, bird is sharp, and head turn bang on.

[Desmond Chan]

On my monitor the head angle looks to be the problem i.e., a bit more turn towards you would be better. But, it could just be my monitor :)

[RakeshDhareshwar]

Would have liked some more details on the black in this otherwise very pleasant image !!!

[Krijn Trimbos]

Gorgeously exposed, which is the best feature of this shot IMHO. Love the HA, perch and colours on the little guy. Congrats!

[Melvin Grey]

V nice pose, fully covered by the D.O.F. and good head angle - certainly captures the wintery conditions! We have two almost identical Parus species in particular, here in the UK, both have full black caps like this little chap. One is matt black, the other slightly glossy. It is almost impossible to get detail in the matt black cap - fine matt black feathers laid over fine m b feathers just does not produce any tonal detail or texture to photograph. A glossy black cap however will produce a tonal range from the slight reflective quality of the feathers. I suspect P atricapillus is similar to our P montanus with a dull black cap.
Merry Christmas, perhaps Santa will bring you some Eskimo boots!

[LouBuonomo]

Good choice of perch IMHO for the day. Using snow as a BG was a good idea as BG there can be a challenge sometimes. Pure white and pure black.. lots of range in this image !

lou

[Arthur Morris]

Artie: The perch, pose and head angle all look good. I wish I could see just a bit more detail in the blacks, but it would take exceptionally soft light to show that in these fellows, I would think. Cheers
Randy

Thanks Randy (and Rakesh). I always forget that when you create a JPEG you increase contrast.... Did I overdo it? (I think so...) BWT, in the TIFF the blacks show no clipping yet the blacks look really black. I like black blacks....

[Arthur Morris]

On my monitor the head angle looks to be the problem i.e., a bit more turn towards you would be better. But, it could just be my monitor :)

Desmond, Thanks for dropping by. Here's what I believe and teach: if the bird's body is angled away from you (as it is here), then the very best head angle is perfectly square to the back of the camera.

I am confused by the monitor comment....

[Arthur Morris]

I love the Chickadee, the exquisite detail in the feathers, perfect head angle, the characteristic bright cheerful eye. The snow all around the branch is wonderful; to me it denotes the power of the preceding storm. Something bothers me about the perch, however, and I think it is the color. I am accustomed to seeing winter branches in a browner or grayer color.
I hope the twin ice blocks have thawed.

Thanks Chicken. Here is one that shows the whole reddish-purple thorny thing. In the originally posted image I took the perch and stuck it into the snow (which was not hard to find).

The twin ice blocks are still thawing out in front of my Mom's space heater!

[Desmond Chan]

Here's what I believe and teach: if the bird's body is angled away from you (as it is here), then the very best head angle is perfectly square to the back of the camera.

Thanks for the lesson :)


I am confused by the monitor comment....Ooops !:o

I made that comment because I was seeing what Rakesh saw, i.e., no to not much details in the black. So, on my monitor, the black feather area of the head of the chickadee is just black. The fact that the beak is largely black also doesn't help me a lot, too. Not a single hint of highlights or shadows on the head like that in your second photo. Therefore, it is very difficult for me to tell how much the chickadee has turned its head. To me, it appears it has not turned enough; looks like a little bit more would be better. Since others were praising the head angle and so I suspected there was a possibility that my monitor was the culprit here...or my eyes :o

I know, I know. I should have said what Rakesh did because the details in the black, on my monitor, is the biggest problem I have with this image.

Hope this clarifies.

[Arthur Morris]

I know, I know. I should have said what Rakesh did because the details in the black, on my monitor, is the biggest problem I have with this image. Hope this clarifies.

OK, I see where you were coming from. Sometimes a poor head angle can result in a too-dark eye or face. That was not the case here. IAC, what you you think of the repost in Pane #14?

BTW, it is always best to have your monitor calibrated and then to check the calibration strip before commenting on too light or too dark :) :) :)

[Desmond Chan]

OK, I see where you were coming from. Sometimes a poor head angle can result in a too-dark eye or face. That was not the case here. IAC, what you you think of the repost in Pane #14? [snip]

Have to say it looks very similar to me...a very slight difference. But perhaps that's the way you like it :)

[quote] it is always best to have your monitor calibrated and then to check the calibration strip before commenting on too light or too dark :) :) :)Mine is calibrated, actually. But certain steps during the calibration involve, IMO, subjective judgement, i.e., when we are asked to adjust the brightness/darkness of our monitor until we can see the separation between two adjacent gray squares in the calibration strip. Some may have turned up the brightness a bit more and perhaps I happened to be not that person.

Anyhow, will re-calibrate :D

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Artie....really beautiful. Loved the details and the snow adds so much in this

[denise ippolito]

Artie, Beautiful sharp details and exposure looks great. I love seeing the snow in the scene. Well done.

[Arthur Morris]

Mine is calibrated, actually. But certain steps during the calibration involve, IMO, subjective judgement, i.e., when we are asked to adjust the brightness/darkness of our monitor until we can see the separation between two adjacent gray squares in the calibration strip.

Hi Desmond, I think that you are missing something vitally important. As I understand it, the only way to fine tune the brightness on an LCD monitor is to adjust the viewing angle. And that is exactly what I do every time I turn on my computer. I tilt the screen forward or back until I can clearly differentiate the two whitest boxes on the right and the two darkest boxes on the left. There is nothing at all subjective about that. (The is a gamma issue when comparing Macs and PCs but I assume that everyone is using a PC :))

[Desmond Chan]

Hi Desmond, I think that you are missing something vitally important. As I understand it, the only way to fine tune the brightness on an LCD monitor is to adjust the viewing angle. :))

But I'm still using an old-fashion CRT monitor ;) And adjusting the viewing angle is not one of the instructions the Spyder 2 that I use tell me to do when calibrating the CRT monitor. Also, if a screen is dark to begin with, so dark that one cannot tell one shade of grade from the other, would simply adjusting the viewing angle change it? I'm not sure it would. I can agree though it could be a factor.

And when we are to adjust the brightness to the degree that we can distanguish one shade of gray from the other, are we supposed to adjust the brightness so that I can comfortably tell one from the other, or just barely enough for me to tell one from the other? There already we're talking about two different degree of brightness I'd say. And that's I think when the subjective judgment plays a role. But I could be missing something here though.

Still, I think even if two persons looking at the same screen under the same environment, although the brightness of the screen may be measured to be the same, they may still detect different degrees of brightness because they have two different pairs of eyes of different conditions.

Then of course I'm not an eye doctor. I'm just wondering :)

[david cramer]

Hi Desmond, I think that you are missing something vitally important. As I understand it, the only way to fine tune the brightness on an LCD monitor is to adjust the viewing angle. And that is exactly what I do every time I turn on my computer. I tilt the screen forward or back until I can clearly differentiate the two whitest boxes on the right and the two darkest boxes on the left. There is nothing at all subjective about that. (The is a gamma issue when comparing Macs and PCs but I assume that everyone is using a PC :))

Well now I've learned something new! I've never tried this, but it sure does work. There is a big difference in the blacks of the first post when I tilt the monitor on my laptop. All sorts of nice detail shows up! It also works on the calibration strip. Thanks for the lesson.

And it is a nice image... great pose and perch, head angle looks good considering body pose, good detail.

[Arthur Morris]

Desmond, You can adjust the brightness during calibration with a CRT monitor. You may be one of the last using one....And as far as tilting the screen with an LCD, it ain't rocket science. :)

David, Always glad to help. Sometimes it's the little things...