Backlit Juvenile

[dennis greenwood]

One from last night, this site is a disused quarry and most of the birds landing spots are either rocks or disused machinery ,most of the stuff knocking around as been there for years ,what I do is park my hide in advance at the hot spots were the birds are favouring ,that is normally predicted by the weather conditions ,the perch here is a upturned work bench that stays in situ all year round so to me its a natural perching spot for the bird and basically it more or less guarantees the bird landing ,I just need the bird to land at the right time of day ,this project is no way finished as I will continue to attempt these backlit shots ...Canon 1d mkiv 300mm f4 at f4 1/320 sec iso 800, I also did some tweaks with the curves with this shot ,not something I normaly do but with the last shot I posted it was suggested by Dianne

[Randy Stout]

Dennis:

This one excellent, with great eye contact, sharpness, sweeping diagonal brush strokes in the bg.

I might try to tone down the brightest whites on the bird near the vent.

One could do a lot of tweaking of the various luminosity levels on this, but I am not sure the end result would be a significant improvement.

Thanks for describing your shooting situation, sounds like a great place to work them.

Cheers

Randy

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Dennis, great eye contact here - you state you are shooting from a hide - is he aware of you, thus that stare? I agree about the hot spot, and quite like the 'perch' too. Better than a part of disused machinery. The BG works well, but would maybe blend in the brighter blob in the LRC.

[dennis greenwood]

Hi, I have a portable pop up hide and the bird reacts to me when I need it to ,ie I will whistle for a head movement and a squeak or a full on stare