Seeing A Red-winged Blackbird's Breath.

[Daniel Cadieux]

While looking through the viewfinder I could see the breath coming out of its bill whenever it called - but it was mostly angled away. I really hoped it would turn towards me, and at one point it sure did! The light was cloudy bright, and coming from behind the subject as you can see from the hints of rim lighting here and there. Photographing with the light coming from behind me did not show the breath, interestingly.

Canon 7DII + 500mm f/4 II + 1.4TC III, manual exposure, evaluative metering, 1/400s., f/5.6, ISO 1600, natural light, handheld, small crop for comp, eliminated an oof part of sumac at left edge, NR to the BG.

[Isaac Grant]

I love this Daniel. The perch, the backlit bird and the breath are just fantastic.

[Noel Heustis]

Yep...that's pretty awesome. I love everything about this shot: perfect bg to see that breath against; the rim lighting on the subject's left shoulder along with the rim lighting on the perch are all great; the exposure on the bird shows lot's of detail in the feathers; and the slightly off center composition works great here. Catching the breath was the icing on the cake here.

[Tim Foltz]

Daniel very interesting and unique image, sweet.

-Tim

[Joseph Przybyla]

Pretty neat, who would have ever imagined. Lovely work, Daniel, thank you for sharing.

[John Mack]

Very nice. Bet you were hoping for some stronger backlight to really show the breath. Well done.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Dan, this is really cool, and love the raised head. Having a clean BG shows off the breath nicely.

[William Dickson]

Well this is different and looking real good. Well captured. I like the red perch which suits the reds on the bird perfectly. nice one.

Will