Willow Tit Landing

[Austin Thomas]

Hi all,

Having waited all week to get out of the office, this weekend it is cloudy and rainy in the UK. Determined to take a picture on my new camera I dusted off the flash guns and set about capturing some birds around the feeding station in the garden.

This is the best of the day. It is not perfect and I will keep trying to improve. There is a shadow cast from the twig onto the far wing which annoys me and I should have spent more time selecting a twig now I look at it !


Canon 1dMK iv. 70-210 lens at 115mm, f9, 1/100 ISO100 and multiple flash guns.

C&C welcome.

Austin

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Pose, eye contact, perch and BG look very good. Why did you choose such a low ISO? The whites have a slight green cast on my monitor.

[Fabs Forns]

Is he landing or falling? :)
I like the pose very much and agree with you that the leaf should not be there, so big it competes with the bird.

[Austin Thomas]

Hi Axel,

"Why did you choose such a low ISO?"

Habit and image quality. The whole image is lit by artificial light so I saw no reason to push up the ISO, rather I adjusted the amount of light from the flash guns.

Thanks for the note on the green cast. I wonder if others see similar? Upgrading to a MK4 forced me to change RAW converter, so I used Capture One for the first time when converting this image. It may well be operator error my end until I understand the new software.

Cheers

Austin

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Hi Axel,

"Why did you choose such a low ISO?"

Habit and image quality. The whole image is lit by artificial light so I saw no reason to push up the ISO, rather I adjusted the amount of light from the flash guns.

Thanks for the note on the green cast. I wonder if others see similar? Upgrading to a MK4 forced me to change RAW converter, so I used Capture One for the first time when converting this image. It may well be operator error my end until I understand the new software.

Cheers

Austin

I'm on a different computer now and don't see a green cast. I guess I have to recalibrate the other one.

I was under the impression that ISO 200 provides the best dynamic range.

[Austin Thomas]

Good input Axel.

If that is correct then I'll select ISO200 as "default" in the future.

Thanks

Austin

[Roger Clark]

Austin,
Very nice image. I like the leaf as without it, it is more just a "bird on a stick." But I would darken the leaf a little though.

Regarding dynamic range on the 1DIV, ISO 100 is 11.3 stops, ISO200 11.2 stops, and ISO400 11.0 stops,
so all pretty close. ISO 100 will have the highest signal-to-noise ratio. I usually compromise on ISO for a little more speed and for wildlife action use ISO 200 and 400 a lot, then raise it as needed.

Roger

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Austin,
Very nice image. I like the leaf as without it, it is more just a "bird on a stick." But I would darken the leaf a little though.

Regarding dynamic range on the 1DIV, ISO 100 is 11.3 stops, ISO200 11.2 stops, and ISO400 11.0 stops,
so all pretty close. ISO 100 will have the highest signal-to-noise ratio. I usually compromise on ISO for a little more speed and for wildlife action use ISO 200 and 400 a lot, then raise it as needed.

Roger

Thanks for the exact numbers, Roger! Both, on the Mark III and the Mark IV, ISO 400 is pretty much my default setting.