Back to black & white birds - but this one is smaller.
Morning light at Lake Merritt Channel Park. 40D + 500L + 1.4x on monopod; minimal crop; ISO 500, f4.5, 1/500, some tone adjustments in Lightroom.
I'm not wild about the OOF front edge of the rock, but the position of the phoebe's tail didn't give me room to crop that edge out (and I guess it proves I was eye level with the bird).
Nice one, Allen! Good DOF on the bird and that blue sky BG is beautiful! You've got good detail in both the whites and darks so nice exposure choice as well. I do see a little noise in the blues so running so noise reduction on the BG or the blue channel would help.
I'm undecided about the front edge being OOF. A little higher position and you might have been able to avoid it but then the low angle would have been different...so this is a toss up for me. I think I might have gone for a little higher angle here.
lovely Allen, I always love it when you can see the brown eye around the black pupil. beautiful detail in the feathers. . I think its only the very bottom part of the front edge that bothers me a little - but you are right, removing it would have put the tail so very close to the bottom. Wonderful photo!
Great bird. Never seen one! Great pose, head angle and BG. Great detail in the eye. I think a little higher would be good too. There's just a hint of looking up at the bird. I'm thinking maybe a little less space to the left would work and it would bring the eye closer to the TL ROT point.
Black phoebe in morning light
Posting Permissions
