Dusky Grouse

[Mark Schmitt]

This bird is not found in great numbers in the area in which it was photographed. In fact, my brother and I had spent the entire day looking for this bird, from before sunrise to dusk. After conceding that we were not going to find it we decided to head for a camping site for the night. As luck would have it, on the road to the site, this bird was spotted on a stump, right at road-side. Fortunately, as many of you know, this is a bird that is very confiding and will alow very close approaches.
The light was very low so an ISO of 1000 was used ( on a Canon 30D that is asking for trouble). So needless to say there will be some noise and aberation in the image.

PP: a good amount of material was removed from the BG and, I would have liked to have taken out the bit of currant bush cutting through the bird, but decided to leave it in. ( another way of saying, "too much work";))
Color saturation was done using "channel mix" instead of "Hue/Sat" as it alows me to work with the color channels individually.

EXIF
Canon 30D
EF 500 IS L + 1.4 T/C effective focal length 700mm
Metering: pattern
ISO: 1000
Exp: 1/320 @ f 5.6 + 1/3 comp. (which was scarry because I had to hand hold the rig)
White bal250 ( though I should have set for 6000 because of the cool temp at dusk and all of the shadows, this was compensated for in Lightroom RAW by selecting for the appropriate temp)

[Dave Leroy]

Very nice pose on the bird. and the bg colours are great. Well done on bg.

Too bad about the currant bush, just a tad farther back and would have been a big plus.
Very sharp and good for you to stick it out for the shot.

Very nice photo.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Angle, pose, light and eye contact look very good. I wish the grass wouldn't block the wing.

[Grace Scalzo]

I am very impressed with this image and with your skill in creating it. Seems as if everything was working against success, yet you persevered. I do not mind the green grass. My eye goes right to the bird's eye and then falls to the beautiful plumage and nice wing stretch. The background colors are complimentary and the noise is not apparent. Thanks for sharing it, and also for telling us how you worked to do so.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Yuo did very well considering the conditions you had. Thankfully this guy was cooperative for you! Some of the contours of the perch seem to be a bit odd (especially in LRC) - perhaps the result of some of your BG removal. Still, well done!