Common Grackle

[Alex Becker]

Hi all,

Heres another common Grackle in flight (hope you aren't sick of them!), this time with a better wing position, also from NJ on a somewhat overcast day but enough sun to bring out the colors. Pretty minor edits regarding tone adjustments and color correction, cropped by ~20%, sharpened and some NR on the BG (water).

Camera: Nikon D500
Lens: 200-500mm f/5.6 at 500mm
Specs: 1/1600 ISO 800 f/7.1

Thanks for looking!
Alex

[Martin Fuchs]

A lot of people don't like grackles, but I'm a big fan of them.
Great challenge to take a good picture of them that actually captures the sheen of their feathers.
I like this pose - he's on a mission!

[Isaac Grant]

Nice one Alex. I love the flared wing and the perfect down stroke. You caught the sheen and also some of the deep colors against a nice background to set this off. Well done.

[David Salem]

Great flight shot Alex!

Wing position--A+
Head Angle --B (although the open beak brings it to a solid B+)
Colors --A
Details --B+
Background --C+(nothing you can do about that)
Composition --B+ (The aspect ratio is perfect but it would be nice to see the bird a bit higher in the frame, although this is definitely subjective)

All in all a sweet capture.

This Camera/Lens combo is "THE" best and fastest focusing system I have ever tried! I am waiting for Canon to hopefully catch up soon because I almost jumped ship last year when I first tried my friend Glen's Nikon D5 and D500 while shooting fast and shifty Terns. It's leaps and bounds better than anything out there, especially for flight photography.
So I expect to see some killer flight frames fames from you this year The bad news is this combo sometimes spits out images that aren't quite as sharp as I would like to see, although this one looks pretty good. Hopefully you have a good copy.

[Alex Becker]

Thanks a ton all! David, thanks so much for the point by point breakdown -- it's really helpful to see where I'm in terms of the in-camera capture as well as the post processing. It's funny I was hoping for this guy to fly a bit further where I would have a really sweet green BG but no luck there.

I've really enjoyed shooting with this combo and actually hope to get some tern fishing / coming out of the water shots this summer so hopefully those will pan out. I feel like I have a pretty good copy --I'm 99.9% sure that any OOF or not tack sharp shots are operator error at this point. My keeper rate has been going up steadily and I feel like I usually know when I've nailed it before looking at the LCD as well. Thanks again all!

[gail bisson]

I love the wing position with the fanned wing tips.
You have brought out the iridescence beautifully. The open beak is a bonus.
BG is OK and for me, the HA is fine. The bird is busy flying and doing his thing and not worried about posing for you!!
Gail

[Daniel Cadieux]

Very cool! I too like grackles. I know they are backyard bird feeder bullies, but when one stops to study them closely they are very beautiful and intelligent birds. Great wing position, and enough iridescence to show it's true colours.