Found this guy in a railing at Wako and couldn't resist taking this portrait.
Nikon D3S 300 f/4 + 1.4TC (420mm), flash -1 EV, HH
1/1600 f/8 ISO 800
Viveza, Sharpener Pro, Dfine NR
Hi Ricardo Glad your going after grackles ... with the proper light and bg can be spectacular and this is so close !!! Razor sharp, lots of shadow detail and great pose. About all you could so is have a little more shine to the feathers but that would be light related !! This is good !!! .... btw might crop a little from right and bottom, places the eye away from the center !!
Hi Ricardo Glad your going after grackles ... with the proper light and bg can be spectacular and this is so close !!! Razor sharp, lots of shadow detail and great pose. About all you could so is have a little more shine to the feathers but that would be light related !! This is good !!! .... btw might crop a little from right and bottom, places the eye away from the center !!
.... btw if your using fill flash lower the shutter speed, at 1/1600 the output is weak !!
Thanks, Al, Dave, Lance and Oz. Here's the repost based on the consensus. I cropped on right and bottom so the bird's eye falls near a ROT intersection; I felt this needed some canvas on the left so I added it. I also brightened the bird a bit, especially the blues, as well as the BG. Please let me know if I'm on the right track.
Al, thanks for the tip on the use of flash. I'm afraid I'm weak on flash theory, but trying to learn.
In my experience, fill flash rarely works with black birds. All you get is sheen and a lot of detail and some structural colour is lost. I try to photograph these types of birds in soft light with plain BG, not too bright.
Thanks, John. I agree that fill flash is tricky with black birds. Heck, I'm finding that with or without flash it's hard for me to get a decent image of a black bird!
Grackle Portrait
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