Mountain BlueBird

[Keith Bauer]

While shooting in Yellowstone in May, we had the fun of photographing Mountain Bluebirds in the Lamar Valley.

This is full frame. Cleaned up some distracting elements in the background, used Tony Kuyper's excellent saturation masking to reduce the saturation on the bird (it was a VERY vivid bird), as well as normal levels adjustments.

Canon 20D
500 mm f/4 L with 1.4X TC
ISO 100
1/320 @ f/5.6
No Flash

Thanks for your comments and critiques.

[Sid Garige]

Very nice composition and eye contact Keith. Like the details.

[Judy Lynn Malloch]

Beautiful image and a killer BG. Very pleasing composition with a great pose and eye contact as well as excellent exposure. Many thanks for sharing Keith.

[Doug Brown]

Like what you did with this one Keith! Hard to believe that the bird is desaturated. I really love the way it stands out against the BG.

[Mark Schmitt]

It has been my experience that the latitude of color saturation of digital cameras can be problematic. The de-saturation is well done. Have you thought of using CS2(3) lab colour and channels to desaturate? This is a very good image. These are one of those birds that is on my list to get a good image of. They are stunning (as can be seen) in their breeding plumage. Well done.