This image was also created on 13 August 2022 at the East Pond at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge in Queens, NY. While seated on damp mud and working off the tilted rear monitor, I used the flattened, no-longer available except from BIRDS AS ART, Induro GIT 304L tripod/Levered-Clamp FlexShooter Pro-mounted Sony FE 600mm f/4 GM OSS lens with the Sony FE 1.4x Teleconverter (at 840mm) with The One, the Sony a1 Mirrorless Camera. The exposure was determined via Zebras with ISO on the Thumb Wheel. ISO 800: 1/1000 sec. at f/8. AWB just before eight am on a sunny morning. Tracking: Zone/AF-C with Bird Face/Eye detection enabled was active at the moment of exposure and performed perfectly. Be sure to click on the image to enjoy the larger version.
All comments greatly appreciated. Going forward, you comment on my image, I'll be glad to comment on yours.
with love, artie
ps: See two similars to this one made in less than two seconds in the blog post here.
Last edited by Arthur Morris; 08-23-2022 at 08:17 PM.
BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.
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Lovely colours and details and a pose that shows the manner in which the bird walks looking intently for food. A very shallow DOF, the key areas i.e. head/eye/bill/leg are really sharp. Does it matter that the tail is OOF? Could it be in focus? I suspect only if the bird was at a slightly different angle. Personally I don't think it matters too much but I do feel the elongated feathers in the wings and tail being OOF do draw my attention away from the head. I like the seaweed in the water and the overall composition.
Thanks, Jon. For 39 years, I have been focusing on the bird's eye and damning the depth of field. At point blank range when working at 840mm, d-o-f is sliver thin. No reasonable aperture would render the far end of the bird sharp. In addition, when you stop down you bring up unwanted background details--the sweet, soft background would be gone. Even working at f/8 is rare for me. I did stop down one stop -- the is rare for me.
with love, artie
BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.
BIRDS AS ART Online Store: we will not sell you junk. 35 years of long lens experience. Please e-mail with gear questions.
Check out the new SONY e-Guide and videos that I did with Patrick Sparkman here. Ten percent discount for BPN members,
Thanks, Jon. For 39 years, I have been focusing on the bird's eye and damning the depth of field. At point blank range when working at 840mm, d-o-f is sliver thin. No reasonable aperture would render the far end of the bird sharp. In addition, when you stop down you bring up unwanted background details--the sweet, soft background would be gone. Even working at f/8 is rare for me. I did stop down one stop -- the is rare for me.
with love, artie
Hi Artie, thanks for replying, I note the voice of experience here " stop down you bring up unwanted background details", thanks - that is a very pertinent point and one I will pop in my memory bank.
Hi Arthur ...
all does look good to me from the technical aspect , albeit I think the 1/1000 is borderline as the subject looks like it was moving .
i do like the overall presentation in terms of color and tones and for sure the low shooting angle is oh so nice .
Nice work and tfs Andreas
Lovely colours and details and a pose that shows the manner in which the bird walks looking intently for food. A very shallow DOF, the key areas i.e. head/eye/bill/leg are really sharp. Does it matter that the tail is OOF? Could it be in focus? I suspect only if the bird was at a slightly different angle. Personally I don't think it matters too much but I do feel the elongated feathers in the wings and tail being OOF do draw my attention away from the head. I like the seaweed in the water and the overall composition.
Hi Jon ... not sure why you are , from time to time , raising the DOF question when it is ( at least for me ) quite obvious that the subject is shot in very close range and the DOF is so shallow by nature . simple explanation ... very long lens shallow dof !!! no practical aperture will bring the whole subject into the focal plane !!!!
Not even worth to discuss as if one does look at the image and analyze it ... it is simply self explaining .
Just my take and opinion ....
Hi Jon ... not sure why you are , from time to time , raising the DOF question when it is ( at least for me ) quite obvious that the subject is shot in very close range and the DOF is so shallow by nature . simple explanation ... very long lens shallow dof !!! no practical aperture will bring the whole subject into the focal plane !!!!
Not even worth to discuss as if one does look at the image and analyze it ... it is simply self explaining .
Just my take and opinion ....
Cheers Andreas
Andreas I mentioned it because the OOF feathers kept drawing my attention. Of course it is obvious that with that combo at that magnification the whole subject could not be in focus, but the point I made was that the tail /wing feathers looked a little distracting - to me. I wasn't doubting or questioning the physics here, it was the aesthetics.
If the bird been in a slightly different plane or if a shorter lens used.....but as Artie said that would have resulted in some background distractions.
Andreas I mentioned it because the OOF feathers kept drawing my attention. Of course it is obvious that with that combo at that magnification the whole subject could not be in focus, but the point I made was that the tail /wing feathers looked a little distracting - to me. I wasn't doubting or questioning the physics here, it was the aesthetics.
If the bird been in a slightly different plane or if a shorter lens used.....but as Artie said that would have resulted in some background distractions.
Ok Jon ... thanks for the explanation , I have misunderstood your point .... sorry for that .
Hi Artie, reading this thread I agree with all that has been written, that the out of focus areas on the bird draw my attention away from what is in focus. I also concur with the explanation of why it happened. The parts of the bird that are in focus are very good. Wonderful color and feather detail. I would say that maybe if the teleconverter had been removed all the bird would be in focus and the background would have been better. Just me I guess but I thought our goal was to have a perfectly focused image with a pure background. Thank you for sharing.
Joe Przybyla
"Sometimes I do get to places just as God is ready to have somebody click the shutter"... Ansel Adams
I quite like thee type of angled shots. As long as the eye is razor sharp then it adds a kind of 3d effect to the shot. Pretty much everybody on this forum can get nice square-on portraits, personally I like to see some variety.
Thanks, all. One man's distraction is beauty to another.
with love, artie
BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.
BIRDS AS ART Online Store: we will not sell you junk. 35 years of long lens experience. Please e-mail with gear questions.
Check out the new SONY e-Guide and videos that I did with Patrick Sparkman here. Ten percent discount for BPN members,
It looks like the bird is fluffing its feathers, a circumstance which looks to have combined with the shallow DOF to render the bird's posterior very blurred. As the above comments show, some like it while others do not. I guess I'd like either motion blur or shallow DOF, but the two seem a bit much here. But then again, most of my shots are the standard, profile type where the entire bird is in focus. So, seems like its mostly personal preference. I would clone out the lower catchlight in the eye.