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Thread: Painted Bunting

  1. #1
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    Default Painted Bunting

    As I mentioned in one of my first posts here, this year has been a great year for me photography wise. I have been so blessed to capitalize on some rare sightings of birds. This image is from one of those occasions. Here in Missouri, Painted Buntings are very rare. Southern Missouri has more sightings, but even there, it is uncommon to see them.

    A learned of a sighting 2 hours from my home. One night I could not sleep and decided I would drive over and see if I could locate this bird. I just jumped in the truck in the wee hours of the morning, never thinking of looking at the weather, etc... Well about 30 miles before my destination, I could see lightining dancing all across the sky and on the radio, severe storm warnings were being announced. GREAT...drive all this way to sit in the truck and watch it rain, and that is exactly what I did. I got to the area of the sighting and just waited for the storms to pass. They did about 2 hours or so later, but still I had overcast skies, which I was fine with.

    It did not take long for me to find this male Painted Bunting. Soon as the storms lifted and and the winds picked up, I saw him flying along a tree line, stopping here and there to sing, and sing he did. I set up along this tree line, at one end, and hoped he would visit the tree I had in front of me at minimum focus distance for my 600VR.

    Soon my hopes were realized and to make a long story shorter...16gb of images and 4 hours later... I had more than enough full frame shots of this bird. The over cast allowed the brillant colors to show, as at the end of the day, the sun did come out and the light on these bright feathers really were tough to control. This is one from a series of images I think are my best from that day. Sorry for the long rambling post, but the story I think is important. This was a first for me.

    Taken with a D300, 600VR, f/5.6, ISO 400, 1/250 SS, Full Frame



    The feather detail is amazing when printed big or if you zoom in on the full size file...sorry this web version does not show that.
    Last edited by Jason G. Harrison; 09-21-2009 at 03:51 PM. Reason: correction

  2. #2
    Axel Hildebrandt
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    I like the soft light, angle, sharpness and eye contact. I find the tail a bit close to the edge and find the OOF leaves not too distracting but a bit more head turn toward you would have been nice.

  3. #3
    Ákos Lumnitzer
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    The head should be a little more turned towards you and it feels a bit tight for me too in the LRC, but I could sense your excitement when I read the notes you made about the trip and bird. Excellent work mate. Congrats! :)

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    Great story an veery nice result, well deserved! I would've tried to brighten the dark areas from the BG and I agree with the above comments. Congratulaitons!

  5. #5
    Publisher Arthur Morris's Avatar
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    Loverly bird, light, and image but the head angle is a bit short of perfect as noted above.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Axel Hildebrandt View Post
    I like the soft light, angle, sharpness and eye contact. I find the tail a bit close to the edge and find the OOF leaves not too distracting but a bit more head turn toward you would have been nice.
    Thanks for the reply Axel. I should have moved back some but I was afraid if I made my prescene known...it would no longer come back to this perch. When it flew away, it only went 20 yards or so to the nest tree and was in plain site. When I first moved to this location, it flew way down the tree line and so I quickly moved in and set up.

    With that said, I do have some shots with the head in various positions, singing, preening, etc...those will come at a later time. Thanks again.

    Jason

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    Quote Originally Posted by Ramon M. Casares View Post
    Great story an veery nice result, well deserved! I would've tried to brighten the dark areas from the BG and I agree with the above comments. Congratulaitons!
    Thanks for the comments Ramon. I see merit in your thoughts on the dark backgrounds but its just a personal thing for me to not alter an image in that way. Some do it, and I am fine with it, but its just not for me. I have some shots with a nice clean background while its on a perch, with different angles. I will post them sometime down the road. It was a once in a lifetime thing for these parts and as I said, I have 16gb of images with all sorts of variations, backgrounds,etc...so plenty to choose from later.:D

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    Quote Originally Posted by Arthur Morris View Post
    Loverly bird, light, and image but the head angle is a bit short of perfect as noted above.
    Thanks Arthur, I appreciate your comments. As I mentioned above, I have some shots with the head facing more to me, right at me, etc... Sometime in the future I will get to posting some of those.

    Jason

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    Wow Beautiful color and detail. Another vote for a little more room LRC Wish it were mine.

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    OK you have received great suggestions. I just want to say what a wonderful story of how much effort goes into making outstanding images. I also like the colors and BG.

  11. #11
    Lifetime Member Stu Bowie's Avatar
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    Lovely colours that you have exposed nicely. HA mentioned, and looking forward to more.

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    great advise given above and agreed , BIG welcome to BPN and hope to see more images from you
    TFS

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