Blue Waxbill

[Marc Mol]

Blue Waxbill
Kwhai region- Botswana Sept '09.
D3 500VR 1/350s ISO200@ f/5.6 +.3EV

C & C most welcome

Cheers
Marc

[Juan Aragonés]

Mark I agree with you about the 500VR :-)
Beautiful finch, I like a lot the "early morning" look of this guy with the eye slightly closed and enjoying the first rays of the sun (... I am presuming that this image was done in the first hours of the day). Composition works for me but I would crop a bit from the top and right. The shadow of the bird is a bit light and bluish in my opinion and I would try to fix it with a selective desaturation of the cyan channel and darkening it just a bit. Something like this. :-)

[Daniel Cadieux]

Beautiful looking bird!! I like the low angle. Agree with Juan's comp suggestion. I'd tone down the lighter parts of the bill, and find the dry vegetation debris somewhat unfortunate (I know, it can sometimes be unavoidable).

[Gerrie van Vuuren]

Lovely image of this busy one. Like the crop with the inclusion of the environment.

[Arthur Morris]

Good job of working right down the sun angle. Getting your lens on the ground might have helped reduce the effects of the distracting background stuff. Might.

[Marc Mol]

Thanks Artie.
I was pretty much on the ground as it is, I was kneeling down if I remember?

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks Artie. I was pretty much on the ground as it is, I was kneeling down if I remember?

YAW. In this case, kneeling did not cut it. :) There are varying degrees of getting low.

Here they or in decreasing order of low-ness:

1-Kneeling
2-Sitting behind a lowered tripod.
3-Spreading the tripod legs flat (assuming that you do not have a centerpost) without shortening the tripod legs.
4-Spreading the tripod legs flat (assuming that you do not have a centerpost) after shortening the tripod legs or mounting your Wimberley or Mongoose head on a Skimmer II:
https://store.birdsasart.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=273 (These two will get you to about the same height with your lens about 8 inches to a foot off the ground.
5-Mounting your lens directly to a Panning Ground Pod: https://store.birdsasart.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=46.
This will get your lens about 4-6 inches above the ground and is ideal in totally flat places like smooth wet sand beaches, flat mud, or parking lots. If you have a low foot on your lens you will likely be too low.
6-Hand-holding with either the lens foot or the back of your left hand resting on the ground. This is about as low as you can go.

Note: there are times when working on sand or soft earth that I may need to build a small platform to raise my rig and inch or two and more rarely, times when I actually dig out a depression to get lower.

With this image, #6 would have been my first choice as it might have reduced the effect of all that stuff on the ground.

[Marc Mol]

Thanks Artie

All good points.