Chicken Hunting

[Kim Rollins]

Set out this morning a long time before daylight in hopes of finding Lek (male grouse staging area) in the desert here. I drove to a spot where historically they have gathered.

I managed to spot some pulsating white spots in the desert as light was just beginning to open for the day, a quick look through the field glasses confirmed I had indeed found some Greater Sage Grouse starting for a morning of strutting their stuff.
I had very difficult situation, near dark, what natural light was coming was coming from behind the birds, the light was coming slowly because the sky was completely overcast, and the birds were at some distance
It is not a good idea to approach these or they will leave the Lek & then not only would one not get any image but this grouse is getting rare and so I would not want to interfere with their natural process of propagation. There has been three separate petitions to place this bird on the Threatened or Endangered list and that has not yet a happened but their numbers continue to decline.

I could see the birds were beginning to move down hill so I went and positioned myself in hopes of being close to where they were headed. My strategy of moving to intercept them worked to some extent and though I would have liked to get much closer then I did my effort was not a complete wash. The natural light remain pretty lousy all during the time I spent imaging them. I was pretty lucky in that I had found a Lek with about a dozen males in it. Many others here in Oregon are now down to one or two males left.


Here is one of the images I captured with the help of long lens and Better Beamer Flash Extender.
I would have loved to pull some detail out of the darks of the image but under the circumstances I just failed to capture it.
Natural but low back light, flash used, slight crop.


E-3 Better Beamer Flash Ext. Focal Length 708 mm 1/125 sec f/8.9 ISO1250
Metering Mode center weighted (2) Exposure Program manual (1)

I do know these are not the Chickens but the Grouse.

[Desmond Chan]

I like the color and the light of this photo a lot ! I do wish that the throat area and the belly (is that what it's called? :D) did not look that dark (are those areas black?). On my monitor there does not seem to be any hint of details there.

[Fabs Forns]

I love the habitat and back light on this one. Wish you had more details on the black, as mentioned, probably too blocked to get any in S/H
If you metered center weighted, the white dominated the reading, combined with the back light, too dark blacks.

Thanks for sharing this beauty :)

[Stu Bowie]

Kim, thanks for sharing your story. You have done very well under the circumstances, and great flash work. I like your low angle, together with the fanned tail. Im sure after all your effort, if you didnt come away with a shot, you would have been very dissapointed. I like the OOF BG too. Well captured.

[John Chardine]

The like the "dreamy" feel of the image, imparted mainly by the BG, and the tail fan is complemented by the grasses. I think you did well with the exposure considering the lighting conditions you describe. I might boost the saturation a little to compensate for the grey light.

[david cramer]

I'd agree with a saturation boost to bring it more alive. I think you did very nice work getting this image and respecting the bird's habitat at the same time. You are already shooting with a low shutter speed, so opening up the aperture may have been the way to go to get more detail from the black. Not sure how much the beamer helped at this distance. Did the birds react to the flash?

[John Chardine]

I'd agree with a saturation boost to bring it more alive. I think you did very nice work getting this image and respecting the bird's habitat at the same time. You are already shooting with a low shutter speed, so opening up the aperture may have been the way to go to get more detail from the black. Not sure how much the beamer helped at this distance. Did the birds react to the flash?

That would have worried me a bit too, especially with low ambient light.

[Ed Cordes]

Thanks for sharing this interesting story. You did pretty good to capture what you did. AS Fabs indicated the center weighted metering hurt your blacks. I wonder if manual metering wold have been better. You may have had to make a non flash practice image to check the histogram first then turn on the flash.

All that said you still have an outstanding image that depicts an interesting bird. I like the back light on the tail feathers as it actually emphasizes them in a positive way.

[Mark Fuge]

Nice shot. You identified the major problem and hopefully will adjust in the future under similar situations. Dark subjects are hard to light under any condition. I’ve been practicing on the Gnus at LCS and have only a couple that I like. I learned that shooting buffalo out west and coming home with the slides all black!!!

I like the composition though. The open space and the tail are good. I also like the backlit tail. It would have been better to have the light on your side, but it does bring out the pattern of the feathers.

Mark

[Mike Lentz]

Good story! Yep, I agree tough light angle, but you did a good job working that out. I love these birds!!

[Daniel Cadieux]

AS Fabs indicated the center weighted metering hurt your blacks. I wonder if manual metering wold have been better.

Kim did use manual exposure. Correct me if I'm wrong but it's not the metering mode that hurt the blacks. When understood and consequently individually done correctly, every metering mode will yield the same result. It's just that some need more and some less EC than others. For example, using spot metering on the blacks may have exposed those properly...only to blow out the whites.

Apart from using stronger flash or having better light angle, this looks like the best exposure possible without overly blowing the whites in this particular situation due to the high dynamic range of the image. I seem to detect a bit of subject motion blur on the eyes/face area. Lovely habitat strewn around the image.

[Kim Rollins]

Thanks to you all!

Fabs - Some spot metering was also tried during the shoot. I was stuck in a situation of 6 of one and a half dozen of the other with my metering as the natural lighting was so difficult that if I worked on the 'blacks' then their breast became blown. Flip-flopped when I worked on the 'whites' I lost the black. Having added the flash was a necessity as when strutting they are constantly vibrating to so SS needs be up some but flash is not a solution in this situation either. What I really needed was the natural light coming a different direction but they do their thing in a certain place at a certain time and you gotta work with what you have there. Thank you for looking and your suggestion.

"Saturation" - John, David and others who commented on this. thank you.I will repost the image with more increase in 'Vibrancy' then 'Saturation'(vibrancy is really saturation in kind but in colors needed instead of globally) and this is done with consideration of your saturation suggestion. Even with 'Vibrancy' used I got some colors that I considered undesirable (yellow in bg and blues in shadows of bird white) & I believe I brushed those away in the mask of the layer.
"Aperture"- "opening up the aperture may have been the way to go to get more detail from the black." Possibly so and upon my return to the field I shall keep that in mind and try it. Thank you.
Daniel - Thanks for your reply and yes Danial I was using manual metering mode on this one. I tried over riding and adding extra flash too but ended with blown breasts. As written to Fabs above it was 6 or a half dozen situation I think. Because of the low SS you may certainly detect the motion blur you suspect, these guys are in constant motion/vibration. I have some others that show the motion in maybe a good way and when I get a chance to work them I will put one up. As they strut and blow-up, vibrate and drop the breast their head almost disappears and this all happens quite quickly too.
Thanks to to all for looking and for the suggestions for me to consider. I consider and appreciate each one and all of you.

Repost -