Full frame @ 28MM!...Ruffed Grouse

[Daniel Cadieux]

Same tame bird as my previous post. After a while it became obvious that a change of strategy was in order as I was struggling to get the bird outside of my minimum focusing distance. Out of the bag came the Tamron 28-75MM lens. The exaggerated perspective and shallow DOF here shows how close the grouse was coming in. Although the BG was toned down in some areas I may revisit it and smooth it out more...

Canon 40D + Tamron 28-75mm f2.8, aperture priority, eval metering, 1/800s., f4.0, ISO 400, +1.3 EC, handheld.

[Arthur Morris]

Way cool and very creative. And very sharp. Lovely colors and the BKGR colors complement the bird's colors nicely. Could you have gotten 6-8 inches lower and placed the BKGR/snow border somewhere near the feet?

[Krijn Trimbos]

Cool pose and I love the curious look of the grouse! The placement in the frame is great as well as is the sharpness. I do tend to find the hotter snow area in the BG distracting. Maybe you could try to see how it looks if you tone it down a little. A way to have remedied this ,like artie pointed out, in the field would have been to have shot from an even lower angle, also this would have gotten rid of the IMHO distracting line in the BG cutting through the birds neck, where forest touches snowcover. Another way to have avoided the hotter areas in the BG would have been using FF, by exposing correctly for the snowcover and using a bit of FF to correct for the probably underexposed subject would have made for the perfect exposure of subject and BG, although going lower would have been the ultimate way to go here I think. All together a very nice shot from a cool perspective of a cool bird.

[titus.ebbecke]

Wow! Cool pose.
It´s cool because the eye is very sharp...

[Mike Tracy]

Cool bird with all those different browns and I like the look he is giving you. Sort of wish his legs were a tad more in focus.

[denise ippolito]

Daniel, I love the color markings on this Grouse. The eye is crystal clear and very nice details -your BG is very complimentary-I like the DOF

[Jasper Doest]

Although I keep wondering how this would be with the legs sharp, it is not a biggy....as the head shows so much detail and my eye keeps going to his eye...which is exactly what you want. Great detail and exposure....I just wish you had a full-frame camera there...Great!

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Very cool, I like the exposure control and composition. I might have stopped down a bit more. Did you try out different angles while your buddy came in for the next snack? If he is so tame, it really makes you wonder how he survives. :)

[Steve Maxson]

A very cool image, Daniel - as was your previous post. Others have commented on the image itself, but I thought I would add a little biology (I did my MS Thesis on ruffed grouse and also raised a brood from eggs and had them in captivity for a couple years.) I have seen this type of behavior many times with my own birds, albeit many years ago, now, and I have seen video clips and photos of "tame" grouse that other people have encountered. This is not all that uncommon with this species, but almost no one seems to understand what is actually going on in these situations. In my experience, the "tame" grouse is always a male and the tameness is not friendliness, but rather aggression. For some reason, the grouse regards you as an intruder on its territory and its tameness (e.g., following you around) is really the bird's way of trying to evict you (why this over-aggressiveness occurs with humans and how this could have any evolutionary advantage for the bird is anybodies guess). My own experience and the photos I have seen of other "tame" birds almost invariably show the bird assuming a posture that it would use when about to fight another male grouse (i.e., body bent forward, feathers sleeked, tail not spread, ruffs not exposed). You might note that when this bird eats out of your hand, it sometimes pecks rather harder than would seem necessary to just pick up some food. I used to have mock fights with some of my male grouse by poking a fist at them - they would jump up in the air and try to peck down on my hand. :) In any case, these birds do allow for some great photo opportunities.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

A very cool image, Daniel - as was your previous post. Others have commented on the image itself, but I thought I would add a little biology (I did my MS Thesis on ruffed grouse and also raised a brood from eggs and had them in captivity for a couple years.) I have seen this type of behavior many times with my own birds, albeit many years ago, now, and I have seen video clips and photos of "tame" grouse that other people have encountered. This is not all that uncommon with this species, but almost no one seems to understand what is actually going on in these situations. In my experience, the "tame" grouse is always a male and the tameness is not friendliness, but rather aggression. For some reason, the grouse regards you as an intruder on its territory and its tameness (e.g., following you around) is really the bird's way of trying to evict you (why this over-aggressiveness occurs with humans and how this could have any evolutionary advantage for the bird is anybodies guess). My own experience and the photos I have seen of other "tame" birds almost invariably show the bird assuming a posture that it would use when about to fight another male grouse (i.e., body bent forward, feathers sleeked, tail not spread, ruffs not exposed). You might note that when this bird eats out of your hand, it sometimes pecks rather harder than would seem necessary to just pick up some food. I used to have mock fights with some of my male grouse by poking a fist at them - they would jump up in the air and try to peck down on my hand. :) In any case, these birds do allow for some great photo opportunities.

Thanks for your insight, Steve! Very interesting!

[Doug Brown]

Beautiful image Daniel. The shallow DOF really works for me, in no small part because you got the head so darn sharp. Thanks Steve for the interesting info.

[Art Kornienko]

Pretty amazing WA and the eye sharpness is very good, more light on the bottom half would have been nice and not sure about the size of your name.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Thanks all! :-)

Artie for this particular image the camera, placed in portrait orientation, was touching the snow. With my right hand holding the body also touching the snow I was limited in pivoting the camera up/down to compose the subject properly in the frame...I do wish I could have physically gotten lower, but I'll take it like this :-)

Steve, I really appreciate the info on the behaviour. Although it seemed calm and trusting, it does make sense that it was it's way of keeping me out of territory (some form of distraction tactic?). I also did notice some harder pecking at times while it fed in my hand.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks all! :-) Artie for this particular image the camera, placed in portrait orientation, was touching the snow. With my right hand holding the body also touching the snow I was limited in pivoting the camera up/down to compose the subject properly in the frame...I do wish I could have physically gotten lower, but I'll take it like this :-)

YAW; that's what I figgered...

[Randy Stout]

This thread is a perfect example of why this is such a great site!! Great photos, and great shared knowledge!

Randy

[Martin Isabelle]

Hi Dan

Wow i love this image ...