Yellow headed blackbird

[Ben Egbert]

Here is one from Peone Prairie near Spokane WA with the 1DS-mk3, and 500f4+1.4x

ISO800, f7.1 1/1250 sec

The high ISO is because I was set for BIF

[Ilija Dukovski]

Excellent one, you've got hard side light, three most difficult colors and you did great.
Love the pose ruffed plumage, I like the fact that you left the cattail on left,
BG is great too. The red channel is just a bit burned, I think you can correct in ACR.

Congratulation!

[Matt Vosniak]

This is excellent Ben. I love the bg and the perch and calling pose is just wonderful. I wonder though if you tried to crop out or remove the left most cattail to see how it would look. It seems a bit distracting to me. Congrats though on the super capture.

Matt

[Harshad Barve]

cool bird , nice singing pose and killer BG & perch
TFS

[Tony Whitehead]

Lovely perch, pose and BG. Image looks just a tiny bit flat. Tried a version taming the clipped reds a little and adding a mild midtone contrast adjustment with a curve.

[Kiran Poonacha]

loved the image, great pose, nice BG and perch, the repost sure adds a bit, congrats..

[Stu Bowie]

I like the calling pose, and good exposure on the blacks. I would maybe clone out the reed in front. Great BG BTW.

[arash_hazeghi]

Beautiful singing pose and lots of fine detail. The plumage detail is excellent, BG soft and creamy and light is good, perch is nice too. I would also tone down the reds a bit.

[Thomas Finnie]

The pose is superb ... the feathers all ruffled up with a foot on each cattail and with his beak open. Great capture and great detail.

I shoot in Aperture Mode. What Exposure Compensation would you typically dial in for this shot?

Super image Ben!

[David Fletcher]

Lovely shot and pose and very much like Tony's repost. WD!

[Ben Egbert]

Lovely perch, pose and BG. Image looks just a tiny bit flat. Tried a version taming the clipped reds a little and adding a mild midtone contrast adjustment with a curve.

Thanks Tony, the original looks better in 16bit Propohoto RGB, I do tend to get some red channal clipping when I convert to sRGB for the out of gamut stuff. I need to develop an eye for sRGB results.

This is what's great aboutthis forum, the fine tuning of the eye.

[Ben Egbert]

The pose is superb ... the feathers all ruffled up with a foot on each cattail and with his beak open. Great capture and great detail.

I shoot in Aperture Mode. What Exposure Compensation would you typically dial in for this shot?

Super image Ben!

Been a while since I used my 1DS-mk3 for birds, I switched to 50D for birds. I also shoot AV and burst most times with AI servo to catch the moment. These are very difficult in early morning sun. The reddish light tends to cook the yellows. I was at +2/3 here, but I use spot meter and was on the blacks. My 1ds-mk3 typically needs +2/3. My 50D would get this same exposure with 0. No formula, but I take a few shots and check the histogram until its right. I also find that you need at least 1/250 to freeze the beak when they are singing. More is even better.

Now that I have my 500f4 and extender dialed in, I shoot wide open which helps, I was still compensating for front focus when I shot this and thus stopped down to f7.1.

[Thomas Finnie]

Hi Ben,

Thanks ... again, great image!!!