Brown Thornbill hovering on banksia flower spike

[Ian Wilson]

Brown Thornbill is one of our smallest birds, in fact, the eponymous 'little brown job' aka LBJ. Normally insect feeders, they will supplement their diet with nectar in mid-winter when insects are harder to find. The shot was taken on 29 June 2013 using the high-speed flash set-up described in my last post. It is one of my favourite captures using this set-up.

Canon 5DIII + 600 mm f/4L II, 600EX-RT with Better Beamer (master flash), 430EX II with Better Beamer (slave flash), RS-80N3 remote shutter release, Gitzo 3532LS tripod, Kirkphoto King Cobra gimbal.

Manual pre-set focus, manual camera settings, f/10, 1/200 sec, ISO 400, 1/8 flash power both units.

Processed in DPP4 and PS Elements.

Thanks for looking, critical feedback welcome.

Ian

[Bill Dix]

Sweet! Beautiful colors, detail; and I love the slight head turn he gave you. Good flash work. Maybe just a tiny bit oversharpened on the bird.

[Daniel Cadieux]

I'm liking how you got a perfect head angle. The far wing looks amazing in full out spread like that! The bit of claw showing is a neat bonus. The flower seems big for the frame, but I like its details and colours. Excellent stuff yet again with your flash setups!

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Ian , nice flash work and great looking little bird with a perfect wing stretch and nice head angle. Agree about sharpening on the bird with Bill .
But i must say i do find the Banksia to dominant in size and saturation in the frame.

TFS Andreas

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Ian, great inflight shot of this little fellow, and I like the show of the wings. Striking colour to the plant, it looks like its covered in syrup Everything pops against your dark BG, and well done again with the multiple flash work.

[William Dickson]

Ian

Another lovely image, and you even got the HA perfect on this one. Well done, and keep em coming .

[Binu John]

Hi Ian, What a stunning pose you captured here! Excellent use of flash! Love the HA and details. Well done!

[gail bisson]

The bird and its pose are AMAZING!
Love the non flashed look and that head turn.
I find the flower overwhelms the bird though. I tried to figure out a way to crop it out a bit but it is tricky. Do you have an image where the bird is further away from the flower?
Still a terrific image that showcases your flash work to perfection,
Gail

[Ian Wilson]

Thanks everyone for your helpful feedback. In this repost I have used less output sharpening (radius 0.3 pixel, amount 50%) and I have used a crop that I previously posted on the BirdLife Australia gallery. It is a tighter crop and 4:3 which makes the bird bigger in the frame relative to the flower. Is it any better? Regards, Ian.

[Satish Ranadive]

Magnificent image. Superb details on birds, beautiful golden flower, dark BG and great settings.
I like the both the compositions.

Regards,
Satish.