Hooded Pitta

[Waqar Amin]

First of all very Happy new year 2011 to everyone.
And my prayers for everyone's prosperity and good health (including me :)).

This morning went to catch this migratory bird (this is the first time i am taking his picture).
Light was very bad, i think backside is not sharp (is it due to f4?).

As always i would love to hear your input (it always help me to improve).

[Mike Milicia]

Very cool bird! Where was it photographed?

With this body angle at 600mm, it would be tough to get the whole bird sharp at any aperture.
Your best option would be to wait for a better position with the body more parallel to the camera.

[Colin Driscoll]

A very pretty bird and well captured- 1/15 sec!! Tripod? Where abouts in the world was this?

[Randy Stout]

Wagar:

Very attractive fellow, colorful.
The shallow DOF from a long lens, at or near minimal focus distance, explains the back being blurry ( as Mike mentioned) It is noteworthy that the head was sharp at 1/15s with this setup.

I like the matching colors in the perch.

Good job, hope to see more.

Cheers

Randy

[Daniel Cadieux]

Waqar, Happy New Year to you too!!

What a great bird! Yes the OOF rear of the bird is due to large aperture and angle of body, and the 600mm FL also augments the effect. Too bad this guy didn't swing his rear more parallel to the sensor, you would have aldo had a better view of the tail. Otherwise excellent sharpness for the SS speed you had, but the face could use a bit selective sharpening...to my eyes the breast feathers seem like the sharpest area.

[Waqar Amin]

Thank you very much guys for your comments.
This bird is very shy and believe me it was very dark where he was appearing, at first i was trying to use flash but even at -3 it was very harsh and there were 10~15 more photographers and getting a good spot was impossible.
I was trying mirror lockup but this bird was very unpredictable, for a moment he was still like stone and next he jump so fast from one place to another.
Daniel you got me there (i did sharpen entire bird but did extra sharpening to the breast :), will work on his face).

Yah btw, this bird is photograph in Singapore.

[Rohan Kamath]

What an amazing capture of this species. A very difficult bird to click. You have done very well here. Nice critiques covered already so not much to add there.


-Regards,
Rohan
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