New Zealand Pipit

[Tony Whitehead]

Photographed at Te Mata peak in Hawke's Bay.
Nikon D300
Nikon 200-400 @ 400mm
ISO 800
F5.6 1/640s (Matrix +0)
SB900 @ -1 stop fill

[Randy Stout]

Tony:

Well exposed, nice catchlight. It seems to me that the head is turned away a bit.

Do you find that you get enough reach from the SB900 to go without a beamer? That would be a real inducement to get one.

Thanks for sharing.

Randy

[Tony Whitehead]

Tony:
Do you find that you get enough reach from the SB900 to go without a beamer? That would be a real inducement to get one.
Randy

Hi Randy. The 200mm zoom on the SB900 is a bit of an improvement over the 105mm on the SB800. It doesn't preclude the need for a BB for longer ranges but at this range was working fine. I don't have a BB for the 900 yet so still use the SB800 with BB.

[Stu Bowie]

Great flashwork Tony, bringing out the detail nicely. The head angle looks fine to me,and he stands out very well against the clear blue sky. Well captured.

[Simon Bennett]

Good detail and well controlled flash.

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Very nice Tony. HA is almost spot on. I was wondering why the BG looks so even and there are some clearly defined lines around the bird and perch. Just curious as to why.

Thanks for posting. :)

[Tony Whitehead]

Very nice Tony. HA is almost spot on. I was wondering why the BG looks so even and there are some clearly defined lines around the bird and perch. Just curious as to why.

Thanks for posting. :)

Well spotted Akos and Peter. This was shot late afternoon under significant cloud cover and BG was quite grey - a colour range selection and some curve tweaking brought the blue out which suited the flash lighting better - done on the road with a laptop trackpad the edges weren't as clean as they could have been.

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

THanks Tony for explaining. :)