Black-throated Sparrow

[Miguel Palaviccini]

Using some of the techniques described in Daniel's "Audio for Photographing Birds", I was able to get this guy out in the open. To be fair, he was very responsive to a call and it didn't take much to get him close by. It was quite overcast, so it became a game of pushing the ISO. I wasn't sure what shutter speed I would need to freeze the singing, so I played it a bit safe with 1/640". Taken in a nearby trail by my new apartment in Albuquerque. The birding sure is different than what I'm used to in FL, but all of the new species are definitely keeping me entertained.

I do wish the bottom half of the branch was more in focus. It looks a bit odd to me. I tried cloning out some of the background, but ended up leaving it because it made it look worse.

Shooting info:
Nikon D800 | 500 f/4 VR + 1.4x
1/640" | f/6.3 | ISO 2500

[Satish Ranadive]

Miguel;
Superb image with very nice singing pose. I like the placement of sparrow high up in the frame and the BG color well complimenting with colors of feathers and perch.
Whites along the edge of feathers looks little hot? or my imagination? Over all wonderful frame, love it.Good self criticism too.

Regards,
Satish.

[Frank Schauf]

Nice pose and bg color.

[Doug Brown]

I like the singing pose and the nice exposure Miguel. I'd prefer it if your DOF covered the perch a little better, and I wish there wasn't an OOF cactus directly behind the perch. I'd like to join you out there when the light is good! The hummers should be a lot of fun this weekend.

[Karl Egressy]

Great species to have picture of Miguel. Nice singing pose, nice perch and lovely background.

[vishaljadhav]

Lovely placement and great choice of going vertical
nice details with the singing pose making it more special.

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

If not for the oof cactus in the bg I would really like the pan crop. I'm thinking I would tighten it up if it were mine to rid of it. The pose is great with nice detail and the bg has a good soft tone.

[Shawn Zierman]

Singing pose is great, and this is such a pretty sparrow species to boot. I like the perch. A slight repositioning at time of capture was probably all that was needed to control the background better. Regarding head and light angle....the light angle appears to be coming in from the right hand side, (given where the catchlight shows on the bird's eye), as such, a slight head angle towards the light angle would have been even better here. Not sure what the working conditions were, but in that regard, positioning yourself more on the axis of light was worth considering.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Hey Miguel, glad it worked out!! Sometimes you get awesomely responsive subjects as you did here, and other times you just go home with nothing...but when it works, IT WORKS! Good vertical comp, nice singing pose, and I love all the earthy tones. I do wish the OOF object at bottom was not there, and yes to a better head angle (relative to body angle), but all-in-all this is a very good indicator of what can be done with audio. Keep it up!