Bassian Thrush

[PhilCook]

Usually notorious skulkers in the denser undergrowth where it spends much of it's time scratching through the leaf litter. This one was foraging on the edge of the undergrowth, and quickly darted back into the bushes when I got too close. A fallen log made for a good escape route, but managed 2 shots before losing it. When first seen it had several worms in it's beak at the one time so I presume it was eager to feed hungry chicks somewhere.

Pretty dim and wintry conditions sadly, but pleased to get a shot of one in daylight hours in a semi open position.

Canon 7D + 500 f4.....f5, 1/160, ISO 500, manual exposure, spot metering, no flash, hand held......cropped and selective sharpen and noise removal to backdrop.......attempted to clone out an axe chop section of the log

[David Salem]

Nice shot Phil. I like the side profile pose with a good HA. Great looking detail and exposure on this one. The worm looks great against that smooth green BG. Well done and nice to see you posting. Oh, cool avitar also.

[Loi Nguyen]

Nice shot. Love the worm and the BG. Looks to me the bird's shoulder is just a little soft and could use more sharpening. Loi

[Shawn Zierman]

That is one sweet looking thrush. Love the plumage. Perfect head angle, and the head is where the sharpness of the image really shines. Excellent for the shutter speed. Sounds like this opportunity was fleeting...At what appears to be a close working distance, (dof looks pretty thin, probably due to closeness/f-stop used), bumping the iso to 800 or 1000 and trying to get a little more dof would have been reasonable at the time of capture. Regardless, that's after the fact type thinking...The worm prey is a very nice detail on this one.

[arash_hazeghi]

nice and sharp. light wasn't bad at all and details are good too. I don't see an issue with dof as beak and tail are both sharp.

and of course the food item is a plus

well done

[adrian dancy]

Altogether a very pleasing image and it would seem you did well to achieve it. The worm is a definite bonus.

[PhilCook]

Thanks for looking and tips

Not sure if trying for more dof by raising ISO would of benefited much in this situation. Raising the ISO to 800-1000 would still result in a very slow shutter speed, especially with altering the aperture for a deeper dof, but would just increase noise level from my 7D

[Girish Prahalad]

lovely side profile. very good comp, details & BG with the prey adding a lot.

[Daniel Cadieux]

What an awesome looking bird, and you got it in perfect parallel pose to show us the neat feather patterns that it wears. Very sharp as posted for the shutter speed used. Overall great job for the fleeting moment you had to do so...

[Karl Egressy]

Nice sharpness and details. Nice head angle and eye contact. The food item in the beak is a plus. Nice work, Phil.

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Nice sharpness, light and great looking bird. The clean BG and nice perch helps your composition. Well done.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Phil, super pose showing off his catch, and interesting detail and colours this species has. As the thrush is parallel to you, I feel you wouldnt have achieved much more DOF by raising your ISO, thus closing down more.

[Satish Ranadive]

Superb image. Very nice pose with great HA and prey in the beak, nice green BG and composition.

Regards,
Satish.