Blue Tit in flight - Horizontal landing High Speed Flash

[Austin Thomas]

I have spent the whole day looking at camera flash accessories at a National Photography Exhibition here in the UK. The main reason is our weather. I either have to master the use of flash in photography or give up photographing on too many days !

Here is where I am up to so far in this project. Sometimes the birds would "drop in" from above when landing on the Teasel, whilst this one decided to fly in almost horizontally before landing.

If you would like to see an image of a Blue Tit as it landed then click HERE

Canon 1DMK4, 70-200 lens at 105mm, multiple flashes with the extra catchlights cloned away.


Cheers

Austin

[Randy Stout]

Austin:

Well captured! Sharp, well exposed, love the feet out,target, look of concentration.

In a perfect world, I would prefer the wings back a bit more to show them off a bit better, but it works well as is.

Def. a case of making lemonade!

Cheers

Randy

[Grace Scalzo]

Good work, Austin. Love the landing pose and also the fine detail and water droplets on the teasel. I think that the background could be improved with a bit of noise reduction and/or blur.

[Arthur Morris]

Way cool. Love the dark BKGR. I an ideal world for me it would be wings back and bird back in the frame :) (You can do the latter easily in Photoshop right now.) Love the feet and the perfect EXP.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Austin I think you have nailed the flash and the timing is excellent. If you are using multiple flashes would it be worthwhile pointing one at the background to lighten it up a bit, or perhaps put some camo material there provided it is sufficiently out of focus (I do this for my bird portraits).

[Aidan Briggs]

Good flash work and timing! I'm not a huge fan of dark BG's but I think it works ok here. I agree about the wing position.

[Morkel Erasmus]

this looks super to me Austin! agree on wing position but not a biggy here for me :)
how many flashes?

[Austin Thomas]

this looks super to me Austin! agree on wing position but not a biggy here for me :)
how many flashes?

Thanks Morkel.

I used four on this image. Three on the bird and one on the background.

Cheers

Austin

[Joerg Rockenberger]

Congrats on a great capture. Wings back would be preferable as mentioned. Great exposure on the bird as well. Did you prefocus on the thistle and turned AF off?

JR

[adrian dancy]

Despite the wing position this one Rocks. Keep at it and you will get that 'perfect' shot I'm sure.

[jack williamson]

Very well done Austin, I would be interested in knowing the shutter speed, ISO, and f-stop

Jack

[Arsdel Fluesmeier]

Nice capture. You did well with your set up.

[RakeshDhareshwar]

Super effort here ....and looks to have paid off well .