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Thread: Male Northern Cardinal

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    Default Male Northern Cardinal

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    Backyard setup using a feeder and camo hide
    1D MKIII
    300mm 2.8L + 1.4 TCII
    Tripod + Wimberly II
    Manual exposure
    Evaluative Metering
    Off camera flash 580 EXII manual at 1/8 output, triggered with pocket wizards
    ISO 1000
    f/4.5
    1/500

    ACR and CS5, sharpened with Genuine Fractals

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    Joel, excellent sharpness and exposure. I like the shallow DOF and the surreal BG too. Well done.

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    I like the lighter part of the bg surrounding the Cardinal and perch...makes it stand out more. If you didn't say you used flash I would have never known flash was used...very nice work.

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    Forum Participant Joe Senzatimore's Avatar
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    Beautiful comp. and killer BG. Fine image.

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    Avian Moderator Randy Stout's Avatar
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    Joel:

    Subtle flash work , which I value. Can you tell us how you have them(?) set up, aimed, etc. Natural background?

    Did you do any eye work? The pupil looks a bit bigger than expected, but perhaps your ambient light was pretty low.

    Very sharp on head and eye, a bit more DOF might have been nice.

    Cheers

    Randy

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    BPN Member Tony Whitehead's Avatar
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    Good flash work, Joel. I love the dusting of snow on the perch but think you could knock the sharpening back on the perch a little as the edges look a little crunchy.
    Tony Whitehead
    Visit my blog at WildLight Photography for latest news and images.

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    I like the wintry feel. I'm curious about your response to Randy's question about the pupil. I wish the redbird's tail were sharper.

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    I think the flash did wonders here. Lovely colours, detail and BG. One mighty fine image Joel.

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    Thanks for all the C&C's and also questions. I'll try my best to explain.

    I have one flash on a light stand outside my blind to the left of the perch and about 6-8 feet away. The flash is set up about 1 ft. higher than the perch and aimed slightly downward. The flash is set to 24mm and 1/8 output in manual mode. I am not using a softbox but I am considering getting one. The birds don't mind the light stand, in fact many of them will perch on it!

    I did work on the bird's eye but only to remove the flash catchlight, I didn't enlarge the pupil.

    The BG is natural....a set of woods behind the perch which starts about 30 feet back. All the trees are gray now and it was heavily overcast so ambient light is very poor.

    I would have liked to use f/7.1 on this but I was already pushing pretty hard on the ISO and with these small birds it's a must to keep the shutter speed up as they are rarely still even when perched.

    Thanks again,

    Joel

  10. #10
    Nate Chappell
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    Nice detail and good job on the reds.:cool:

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