Ruffed Grouse portrait

[Daniel Cadieux]

Lucked out on another ultra tame Ruffed Grouse on Saturday (had another one last year). Spent about 1.5 hours with it as it followed me everywhere - that was both a good and a bad thing. Good for obvious reasons (especially that I could lead it to open and well lit areas), bad because it was always TOO close to focus on. Although this particular image was taken with the 100-400 it quickly became evident that I had to switch lenses...so I later slapped on the 28-75 with its close focussing capabilities for some full body photos (some at 28MM!!)

Canon 40D + 100-400L @275mm, aperture priority, eval metering, 1/160s., f/6.3, ISO 400, +1EC, handheld, full-frame.

[Randy Stout]

Daniel:

Lovely colors, exposure and details in the feathers..Great eye, head angle.

A slightly lower shooting angle might be nicer, but i suspect, knowing you, was that you were already about as low as possible.

Interesting back story about this bird following you around!

Cheers

Randy

[denise ippolito]

Daniel, This is a great looking portrait. The eye is crystal clear. Nice details in the head and beak. Well done!

[Beth Goffe]

I love the story behind this image. How funny it actually followed you around. I'm usually wishing for more length with my 100-400; it's unusual to hear when a bird is actually within minimum focusing distance.

I've never seen this bird so being able to the great detail in the plumage is really lovely. I'm sure it's well adapted to forage in undergrowth and brown grasses. It must be difficult to see under less "friendly" circumstances. :)

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Amazing that they are so tame, did you reward it with some food? I like the light, details and BG, maybe a bit more room at the top? Can't wait to see the 28mm full frame images. :)

[Daniel Cadieux]

Axel, yes I gave it some rewards...it fed readily from my hand, and from other strategically placed seed :-)

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hi Daniel,
I really like all the fine feather detail....especially around the eye. As I like tight crops I'm OK with it as presented......but the extra room up top won't hurt the image either. Very nicely done and thanks for the story behind it too!