It's been months ago since I could go out to for photographing birds. These past days I had a chance to play with my new toy; the Kenko extension tube set. I had to focus manually that is not really easy and the birds don't stay around longer than a few seconds. This photo was cropped to more pano, added canvas to the right and cloned out the little piece of the feeder from the the corner. Comments are appreciated.
1DMKIV
500mm
ISO1600
1/300
f:13
Manuel exp.
all 3 Kenko tubes between the lens and the 1.4TC
Tripod, flash without BB
Nice looking bird, I especially like the red beak. It looks a bit over flashed to my eye and may be the eye could use some PS work to darken the pupil.
Thanks for the comments. Juan Carlos. How can I improve these kind of shots? My flash was at -3, better Beamer off, at high speed and 35mm setting. Any suggestions?
Lorant I guess you were very close to the bird. In this case fill flash, even if is -3 could be to strong. May be the use of a diffuser, or faster shutter speed could help? I am also learning so that's what I would do, could be totally wrong so more advise would be welcome!
Nicely placed in the frame so your choice of crop and added canvas was well chosen I think. Agree with Juan regarding flash, it to me seems a little strong particularly within the eye, and good advice about darkening the pupil to help solve that aspect. dof has worked well with the bird perfectly side on to the camera, getting good dof with tubes is not easy.
Impressed you focused manually, and with tubes, I love to photograph small birds more than any other subject and I have tried manual focus a few times with poor success....well done.
It's nice to see a HB up close and personal. I love all the colors in the plumes that you captured and it looks nice and sharp to my eyes. The plumes don't look overflashed to me but I would have to see an alternative to really tell the difference. Good use of tubes here. This is a certain style with the BG rendered all dark, and I like how it makes the bird pop. That said, it's doesn't look as as natural as it could. This couldn't have been an easy capture and I think you did quite well.
Excellent close up, Lorant. The pano crop suits the composition here quite well. Advice from Artie regarding this issue - pull the built in diffuser out and over the flash head when working with birds this close.
Broad-billed Hummingbird close up
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