Barn Swallow and young: Feeding time!

[Warren Spreng]

I typically stick to Eager to Learn but thought I'd jump into the deep end here. I have been setting up in a field near my house the last few days trying to catch the feeding antics of a number of Barn Swallows as well as Tree Swallows that love to swarm over the field catching bugs for their young. The young sometimes set on the ground in the parking lot or in trees in the lot. Yesterday I set up my camera on a tripod close to one tree the young would frequent and fixed the focus on one young bird and waited with a remote release as the adults dove in to feed them. Transfer of the bugs lasted less than one second so I have a ton of shots with partial birds in them! Actually this is one of them where the raw image is missing the tip of the lower wing as well as the tip of the lower tail. So I inverted the image and cut and pasted the tips from the upper wings and tail onto the lower ones and then expanded the canvas on the bottom. I also cloned out a branch above the two birds and some OOF leaves that were just below the baby. The adult had actually already transferred the bug it had in its mouth to another baby so this one may have been a bit disappointed! Canon T3i, Tamron 150 - 600mm, 600mm, ISO 800, f/8.0, 1/2000. Shadows lightened in LR, all cloning, sharpening, etc done in PS CC. C&C welcomed.

[keith mitchell]

Warren I like the action and the interaction between the two birds, think maybe would like to see the underside of the bird a bit lighter which I think would show a bit more detail, very well done getting this.

Keith.

[Warren Spreng]

Warren I like the action and the interaction between the two birds, think maybe would like to see the underside of the bird a bit lighter which I think would show a bit more detail, very well done getting this.

Keith.

Thanks Keith, I had lightened the underside and noise went up so I'm going to go back to the raw and see if there is more I can do before bringing it into PS. Here is a lightened version, thanks for the input.

[Diane Miller]

This is a great shot for your first foray into the big pool!! Wonderful catch! Great pose and interaction, excellent cloning!

I like the lightened version, but the Shadows slider does bring up noise. It helps a little to increase Exposure as much as you can first -- it causes a little less noise. And the NR slider can work well, too, used judiciously. Then try Nik's Dfine or another NT program in PS. Sometimes you can get a good improvement.

If the bird is coming to one spot, setting up a spotlight might give some good illumination, or use a Speedlight and a Better Beamer -- at low power with fresh batteries or an external battery pack, it can cycle as fast as your burst rate.

Can't wait to see more!

[Warren Spreng]

Thanks Diane, I always appreciate the comments and suggestions. A great forum for getting good feedback for future shots!

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Welcome aboard mate, don't be shy!

I like this lots. As suggested, exposing over is better than pushing the exposure up in post. It is not easy shooting into a bright sky especially when the bird has those white spots on the tail. My basic approach to dark birds against a bright sky is always push exposure so much as to blow all the light tones, to minimise noise in the dark feathers. In my experience it is not possible to capture good tonal detail across from darks to lights shooting a dark bird against a light background. Something has to be sacrificed. It's best the sky's made the sacrifice.

Great wingspread on the adult bird. A really impressive first image to share. I have no real experience with many after effect plug in stuff, the only thing extra in my workflow is Neat Image. For wildlife shots that is.

Thanks for sharing and bring out some more!

[Warren Spreng]

Thanks for the comments Akos, and good advice on pushing the exposure in these situations!

[Joseph Przybyla]

Love the interaction between the adult and chick, wonderful capture. Thank you for sharing.

[Warren Spreng]

Love the interaction between the adult and chick, wonderful capture. Thank you for sharing.

Thanks Joe!