Snow Bunting

[Jim Fenton]

Image created this morning in Salisbury MA. Unfortunately around here, the snow buntings rarely sit ion pristine snow...they kinda like it amoung the bits of exposed grass where they can forage for food.

Nikon D300s, 500VR, TC17EII, ISO500, F9, 1/1600, CW Metring Near Uni Preset +.3 EV

[Danny J Brown]

Hey Jim - Classic shot of a bird I've never seen in real life - that I know of anyway. The snow looks perfect to me and the other elements make this little portrait shine, especially the dry grass coming through the snow. The bokeh allows me to get a bit of a feel for the environment so I like that too. Colors are beautiful as black and brown are too of my favorites on a bird - sounds boring but that is what I like. Finally, I like the gleam in the little fella's eye.

[Randy Stout]

Jim:

Perfect exposure on the bird, I too like the environmental component. Excellent shooting angle, I like to be able to see the feet so well.

Cheers

Randy

[Jim Fenton]

Getting the feet included was a tough one. The wind was really blowing and most of the rime the birds were hunkered down into little wind furrows in the snow. This one popped up for about 10 seconds and I got a number of images with feet included :)

[Todd Frost]

Nice image, exposure and detail look good. I don't find it unfortunate to find this guy in the grasses at all, if not for the environment we could make the images in a studio.
Todd

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I think the grass adds to the image. Light, angle and open beak add to it. The catchlight looks a bit odd, I would make it a bit smaller.

[Jim Fenton]

The catch light is natural....both from the sun in the sky and the snow on the ground.

I even got one where the catch light is a perfect 5 pointed star shape :)

How can a catchlight look odd if it's real?

I'm confused (so what else is new?)

[Axel Hildebrandt]

The catch light is natural....both from the sun in the sky and the snow on the ground.

I even got one where the catch light is a perfect 5 pointed star shape :)

How can a catchlight look odd if it's real?

I'm confused (so what else is new?)

If it is natural, it has to be good. :) Kidding aside, maybe sharpening the catchlight less would make it look less 'frosted'?

[Ofer Levy]

Beautiful. Would try to define the catchlight a bit more.