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Had an amazing opportunity this summer to photograph a Barn Swallow nest under a busy cement bridge. It was a difficult shoot but one from which I learned a lot.
Canon 1D4, Canon 500L & 2.0 TC
F14, 1/300sec, ISO 200, manual mode
Full flash @ 1/2 power with Better Beamer on a nearby stand
Feisol tripod, Jobu head
Comments and critiques welcomed and much appreciated.
Marina:
It just goes to show that you always have to be on the look out, even in busy areas, as birds use what they can for their needs.
Excellent feeding activity, two good head angles.
Looks a bit tight at the top. Was this shot as a vertical?
Like the idea of moving the flash well off camera. Perhaps a bit of a diffuser to soften the shadows a bit?
Cheers
Randy
Great opportunity and excellent action shot, Marina.
Hi Randy:Quote:
Originally Posted by Randy Stout
This was shot in horizontal and the left portion of the nest and 3 other chicks were cropped out. Yes, it's tight on the top but there were hornets' nests surrounding the swallow nest and for this presentation, I felt it looked best without a portion of a hornet's nest at the top.
The shadows on this nest were quite harsh and there was nothing to be done about. There was a very small window from which to shoot from the ground; there were cement beams making the window even smaller; the nest was quite far off; and the nest was over water. Options were few which made it quite challenging and there was a lot of experimentation going on.
Hi Marina, well thought out, and I feel your vertical comp has turned out well with your description above. Well timed for the feeding behaviour, and good use of fill flash.
Thank you, Stuart. There was no fill flash here, Stuart. This is full manual flash. Unfortunately, there was no ambient light under this bridge. :(Quote:
Originally Posted by Stuart Bowie
Very nice capture....I took a few of some nests under a cement bridge as well but missed the feeding activity....6 in one of the nests...room at the top was a problem for me as the nest was almost at the the horizontal junction of the bridge....amazing how they can get their mud nests to stick to a vertical concrete wall
Marina:
Thanks for explaining the setup. Sounds like you made the very best of a challenging situation. Perhaps you need a giant reflector, about the size of a billboard, to get some light up in there! I have seen some of the reflectors used for outside TV filming, and they are immense. :S3:
Cheers
Randy
Great interaction, and pretty good image quality given the challenging conditions. You did quite well with your flash-as-main-light technique; moving the flash off axis definitely helped.
Interesting setting.
I would like to see the Full frame image to see what it looks like.
Hornets nests might be kind of cool?
Thanks for looking, Dan. I actually love the inclusion of the hornets' nests with this nest but in this particular image, it didn't work to include a cut off hornet's nest on the ceiling along with a large shadow. On the images of the entire nest, they look darn pretty cool.Quote:
Originally Posted by dankearl
Excellent action image. Very nice moment captured.
Regards,
Satish.
This is all about the relationship between the parent and chick and is illustrated very well. You chose your moment very well Marina.
Great shot!!!
Teriffic moment captured.
I really like the comp and excellent flash work.
Well done.
Marina , this kicks some major bootay! Love the tight crop and intimacy you got here.
