Female Cardinal

[Harold Davis]

Captured this girl at Corkscrew Swamp (no water:() Sanctuary Sunday afternoon. Could I have adjusted my ISO one way or the other in order to have increased my shutter speed and gotten better detail in the bird? or is it possible to increase my flash while increasing my shutter speed for better results?

Nikon D300, Sigma 50-500 at 500mm, f/6.3 - wide open for that lens at 500, 1/125s, -0.3EV, ISO 800, flash fill, better beamer, -1.0EV

thanks for the help

[Alfred Forns]

The girl is looking mighty fine Harold Does stand out well with excellent detail and love the color Got the crest up and good head turn Nothing much you cold have done from your position

Tech wise it looks just fine I'm just amazed at the results with your SS !!! Big Congrats !!!!

[Judd Patterson]

Nice image Harold! It's nice to see this female in a bit of habitat (other than just a stick) and you did well considering the conditions. I'm curious if you were using a tripod? With good technique and a tripod (and a momentarily still bird) you can obtain very sharp images at 1/125 and a 500mm lens. To answer you questions, I think you probably could have safely gone a bit higher than ISO 800 on the D300, but I think this was probably the best balance of shutter speed/noise/dynamic range.

Another option would have been to go into manual mode and use your flash as the main light source (instead of just fill). Your background would start to darken (and may even go to black with some settings) and you're subject would be very sharp...because it would be "frozen" by the short pulse of light from your flash, even if the shutter speed is not that much higher than 1/125. While this can be a helpful technique, I think most of us prefer flash as fill where we keep a lot of the ambient light like you did in this image. Hope that helps a bit!

[Harold Davis]

thanks guys, yes it was on a tripod. and i agree judd, i wouldnt have wanted to blacken the BG.

[Robert Amoruso]

Harold,

Artie has an excellent section on long lens technique in this CD Book, The Art of Bird Photography II.

[Gus Cobos]

Very nice shot Harold, the colors are beautifull and also the detail....

[Nonda Surratt]

That female Cardinal looks like one could reach out and touch her..Nice job!