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Thread: Woodcock

  1. #1
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    Default Woodcock

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    Taken couple of days ago in complete darkness.
    I focused manually with the help of my 8 years old son.
    He was very good in working with the flash-light. :)
    Although this image was taken at the end of the displaying
    activity, I was trying not to disrupt and stress the birds
    too much. They didn't seem to be affected by the flash at all,
    nevertheless I took only couple of shots.
    Not sure if net effects of (now traditional) human presence at their leks is negative
    because of disruption or actually positive by deterring predators.
    If you happen to know of a study on this issue please let me know.
    In any case it is great to go out and observe these guys this time of the
    year.

    The HA could be better but the good side of it is that in this case
    I didn't get the "red eye" from the flash. No work was done on the eye here.
    With the eye so far back on these birds heads it actually looks OK to me.
    CC appreciated.
    Nikon D700 300mm+TC14 f/5.6 1/60 Flash ISO400

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    Publisher Arthur Morris's Avatar
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    Attached Images Attached Images
     
    A cool bird and a cool image, but.... With night photography of birds on the ground, getting lower increases the flashed look and the night-time look. There is even flash fall off from the side of the bird to the face. And with the bird on a ridge and empty space beyond the night-time/flash look is increased even more. Better if he had been in front of the little ridge so that the flash would have illuminated the grass behind the bird. Better also if you had been higher.... Perhaps the image above will give you an idea of what I am talking about. I chose a subject with a BKGR fairly proximal to the bird and worked from a near-standing position.

    The Bonin's Petrel was photographed in pitch dark with flash as main light technique and manual flash.
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    Publisher Arthur Morris's Avatar
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    ps: your woodcock image is way better than the zero that I have!
    BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.

    BIRDS AS ART Online Store: we will not sell you junk. 35 years of long lens experience. Please e-mail with gear questions.

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    Nice woodcock image. The last I I saw landed in a bush near me and just as I was going to take the picture a Guy in a huge truck pulls into the area loud and fast and the bird flew into the woods. so I envy your picture :D

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    Cool image, the feather pattern is beautiful and is shown off very nicely here.

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    I flushed one by accident a few years ago in Cape May, i was digiscoping at the time and had no chance, still, i knew right way what it had been, they are so unique.

    I think you did quite well given the circumstances.

    Thanks Artie for posting the info regarding flash, very useful and something i had never heard before.

  7. #7
    Cindy Mead
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    I've tried (and failed) to get images of American Woodcock while out at night watching their mating display Iilija, and know how difficult it can be to spot the birds after they descend back to the ground. Timberdoodles are such unique birds and this shows their beautiful plumage markings well. (We banded them in the field for many years, and I wouldn't be too concerned about your presence disturbing their behavior, any more so than any other bird). I really like this one :)

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    Quote Originally Posted by Arthur Morris View Post
    A cool bird and a cool image, but.... With night photography of birds on the ground, getting lower increases the flashed look and the night-time look. There is even flash fall off from the side of the bird to the face. And with the bird on a ridge and empty space beyond the night-time/flash look is increased even more. Better if he had been in front of the little ridge so that the flash would have illuminated the grass behind the bird. Better also if you had been higher.... Perhaps the image above will give you an idea of what I am talking about. I chose a subject with a BKGR fairly proximal to the bird and worked from a near-standing position.

    The Bonin's Petrel was photographed in pitch dark with flash as main light technique and manual flash.
    Thanks Artie, I understand what you are saying. I realized I'm too low when I got the lower part
    of the image over-exposed. I got few more images with bit more BG and even light (less nightly look)
    but they are under-exposed and noisy. I'll try to get something out of them and post later.
    The night images of the Petrels, including the ones on the blog are really good. Can you tell us
    what are the settings for the manual flash here?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Arthur Morris View Post
    ps: your woodcock image is way better than the zero that I have!
    Hey, no Timberdoodles yet? You should come to MA, plenty of these guys around here :)

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    Quote Originally Posted by Myer Bornstein View Post
    Nice woodcock image. The last I I saw landed in a bush near me and just as I was going to take the picture a Guy in a huge truck pulls into the area loud and fast and the bird flew into the woods. so I envy your picture :D
    Thanks Myer, they really do land very close to you, the problem is to focus really fast in the
    dark before they take off. Presence of loud trucks does not help:)

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    Quote Originally Posted by Rick Dobson View Post
    Cool image, the feather pattern is beautiful and is shown off very nicely here.
    Thanks Rick, they really are beautiful, we don't get too many chances to see them nicely.
    Most of the time we only hear them displaying.

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    Thanks Paul and Cindy,

    Cindy: it is good to hear that they are not affected by our presence. It really seems that
    they don't care too much about us when displaying.

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