This is the last cactus wren, I promise! Really! Maybe. I hope?
First day of shooting in Arizona, while I was still figuring out how to best use the perches and audio, I got a very tame bird. Tried to get him with the plant he's most associated with, the cactus, and while this isn't the stereotypical saguaro, cactus wrens will perch quite happily on a jumping cholla. I lightened the shadows in the left half of the shot with an overlay layer and did a little cactus cultivation courtesy of a shot taken about 10 seconds prior.
7D mkII
100-400 IS II zoom
1/1250 @ f/7.1, ISO 800
ACR conversion/PS optimized. The blue sky background was a true electric blue due to the lack of cloud cover; I desaturated the blues and cyans in an attempt to have a nicer looking background. I have yet to run any noise reduction, as I just purchased Neat Image and want to read the guide before making any permanent changes to the file.
Last edited by Jake Levin; 11-19-2017 at 08:05 PM.
Nice. Here is a rare case where a lot more d-o-f might have helped sharpen up the cactus spines ...
with love, a
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I never really noticed how blurry that bit of cactus is until you pointed it out. Now it's annoying me. The joys of shooting up at your subject, I suppose. Mental note for the next time!
A lot better than the last one Jake, and yes some more DOF. My eye was immediately drawn to the OOF cactus. Lovely pose you got on the bird and the open bill adds to the image.
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