Simple Set-Up

[Arthur Morris]

When working at Morton with Grace Scalzo I took a small, pretty nice looking branch, dipped it in the snow, and placed it near our "feeder." Here's a great tip when you are working in fresh snow. Try to find some animal tracks in an expanse of snow and place your seed in their footprints. This gets the seed out of sight. And that's what we did in this case using some pretty deep deer tracks. Rabbit tracks would have been better :) We did make lots of images of the birds right on the snow and on the edge of the tracks. In any case, the seed remained out of sight and out of our images.

This Song Sparrow was photographed with the Canon 800mm f/5.6L IS lens, a 25 mm Extension tube, and the EOS-1D MIII. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +1 2/3 stops: 1/160 sec. at f/11. Fill flash at -1 stop.

Don't be shy; all comments welcome.

[jfranciskay]

Nice shot Artie! Nice composition, I really like the almost duo tone feel this has. Color, contrast excellent and nice HA. I like the way you have maintained contrast in the bird, as my snow shots like this tend to lack contrast. I did notice there is no detail in the snow on the branch, any way to bring that back might be nice. Oh and nice tip on the seed in the tracks..definately have to try that.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the set-up, light and pose. I would not have known that you used fill flash. If anything, maybe a tad more saturation?

[denise ippolito]

I like the set-up and the angle on the perch adds interest. Great tip to place the seed in the footprints. Very nice pose,exposure and sharp details.

[Stu Bowie]

Fill flash in snow, and you still exposed this very well. Great work Artie. I like the perch with the bundle of snow in front. Good detail on the little guy, and as we dont have snow here, cant use your tip on placing seeds in footprints. Will mud work????? LOL.

[Aidan Briggs]

Not much to critique on this one. Lovely exposure, fluffed up pose, and sharpness. The snow is nice too. I guess you could crop some from the right, but I also like the comp as is.

[Hendri Venter]

I'm amazed how well you expose the birds in snowy backgrounds. Great work Artie. Beautifull image Sir.

[Arthur Morris]

I'm amazed how well you expose the birds in snowy backgrounds. Great work Artie. Beautifull image Sir.

Thanks Hendri, Digital exposure is a snap; just push the histogram to the far right.... If you get just a few blinkies, you are perfect and they can easily be recovered.

[Ilija Dukovski]

Other than said above I'd add that I really like the composition. The
perch matches the color of the bird and the comp of the angle on the
perch and the birds pose/HA make it very nicely.

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Artie...loved the high key treatment. Nice pose too. If anything, I'd suggest a tad more room at the top.

[Malcolm Benn]

I like everything about this shot especially the tip .. that I can definitely use, thanks for that.:)