A simple Chickadee

[Duane Noblick]

Carolina Chickadee



Canon 7D, 500mm f/4L, 1/400" @ f/10, ISO 400, manual

A small branch was removed in the upper left corner of the frame and this was taken in my backyard bird garden.

[Arthur Morris]

Simply very excellent. SH, perfect EXP, and a perfect HA. I wold love to see this as a traditional 3X2 cropped from the bottom and the top (with a bit more room above the bird than below).

Love the BKGR and the fact that you were working right on sun angle.

[jack williamson]

Duane, you have done very well to bring out the real colors of this little bird. The exposure, bkgr, and

detail are right on. I have a hard time with their black and white head in direct sun. This looks great.

Jack

[Don Lacy]

Wonderful image agree with other on the nice HA and BG.

[Grace Scalzo]

Nothing simple about a chick-a-dee. They move so fast and exposures are tough. This one is really sweet and I like the detail that you have in his (or her) eye. Great that you were able to stop down and achieve good depth of field from beak to tail.

[Arthur Morris]

Duane, you have done very well to bring out the real colors of this little bird. The exposure, bkgr, and

detail are right on. I have a hard time with their black and white head in direct sun. This looks great.

Jack

Jack, The trick is to to work right on sun angle.... Doing so makes getting detail a lot easier than if you were working with strong off angled light.

[Steven Kersting]

Love the detail!

What is "HA" an abbreviation for?

[Pieter de Waal]

Duane, nice alert pose, I like the HA, excelent job of exposure and sharpening with those difficult colours.

[Duane Noblick]

Steven...HA stands for head angle.

Thank you for the critiques and comments. I struggle to get such a small bird sharp from head to tail but when they turn just right it works. I also think I was working with some filtered light with this image...thin layer of clouds but I can't remember on this exact image.

To get them to stop in their tracks and make eye contact with me I wiggle my left index finger before I push the shutter...it works most of the time and they make it easy because they're used to me sitting out on my deck photographing them.

[Daniel Cadieux]

...I struggle to get such a small bird sharp from head to tail but when they turn just right it works...

...To get them to stop in their tracks and make eye contact with me I wiggle my left index finger before I push the shutter...it works most of the time and they make it easy because they're used to me sitting out on my deck photographing them.

Although I love the body completely within DOF I'm OK with OOF tails (and many times even more) when the head is sharp (just so you don't struggle too much...)

Another trick that works well to get some good HAs with these guys is making a soft pishing, or kissing noise.

Excellent image all around. Techs look great. Nice perch and BG. I agree with Artie's composition suggestion.

[Arthur Morris]

Steven...HA stands for head angle.

Thank you for the critiques and comments. I struggle to get such a small bird sharp from head to tail but when they turn just right it works. I also think I was working with some filtered light with this image...thin layer of clouds but I can't remember on this exact image.

To get them to stop in their tracks and make eye contact with me I wiggle my left index finger before I push the shutter...it works most of the time and they make it easy because they're used to me sitting out on my deck photographing them.

Not much of a cloud at the moment of exposure judging by the fairly sharp shadow of the bird on the branch. But any thin cloud helps a ton with B&W birds.....

[Jim Crosswell]

Great image Duane! I like the exposure, HA and complimentary BG.

[Roger Clark]

Jack, The trick is to to work right on sun angle.... Doing so makes getting detail a lot easier than if you were working with strong off angled light.

Artie,
But the posted image is not right on the sun angle. It is off to the right a good 20 to 40 degrees judging by the sharp shadows. The image shows wonderful fine detail, due to the sharp focus and a nice off-sun angle

Roger

[Arthur Morris]

Rog, The sun is more high than off-angled. Look at the spot where the shadow of the body crosses the branch. I would agree with 10-15 degrees off sun angle and with the bird angled towards the light the bird is effectively pretty close to the sun angle; that is why there is pretty much no "sculpting" of the feathers in the image, because the bird is very close to square to the light.

[Roger Clark]

Rog, The sun is more high than off-angled. Look at the spot where the shadow of the body crosses the branch. I would agree with 10-15 degrees off sun angle and with the bird angled towards the light the bird is effectively pretty close to the sun angle; that is why there is pretty much no "sculpting" of the feathers in the image, because the bird is very close to square to the light.

Artie,
While the aximuthal direction of the sun may only be 10 to 15 degrees, the sun had to be quite high because of the shadows. For example, the sun under the bird extends just to the right foot. Projection of the line shows the sun was perhaps 30 degrees high. So the phase angle is in thr 40 degrees range. From the geometry of the bird, I would call this a positive phase angle. It is this phase angle that gives the fine detail in the subjects feathers.

If Duane can tell us the date, time and location of the image, I can compute the sun altitude (and show others how to do it too--it's simple with a US Navy web site).

Roger

[Arthur Morris]

Rog, I do not understand either aximuthal direction or phase angle but do agree that the sun was relatively high in the sky. And I do understand that some folks may learn best using the scientific approach. I do not :)

[Roger Clark]

Rog, I do not understand either aximuthal direction or phase angle but do agree that the sun was relatively high in the sky. And I do understand that some folks may learn best using the scientific approach. I do not :)

OOOPS! That should have been azimuthal, meaning how far around the horizon the sun is (e.g. in degrees). For example, you can point your shadow directly at your subject, but if the sun was up in the sky 45 degrees, the angle between you and the sun as seen by the subject is 45 degrees. So the phase angle would be 45 degrees.

Roger

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks for the clarification :)

[Roger Clark]

From Duane:
"This image was taken in Chesapeake, Virginia at around 4pm in the afternoon on March 7, 2011. As I stated in the topic I think I was working with a very thin layer of clouds and the sun was over my left shoulder at the time."

It is very simple to compute the position of the sun or moon using this web site:
http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/AltAz.php
(Note also the data services tab gets other useful data).

On this web page, you simply put in the date, and for US places select the state and nearest city. The site does not correct for daylight savings time. For other places in the world you need longitude and latitude (you can get that from google earth).

Here is the portion of the table for Duane's image around 4pm (16:00) EST.

Altitude and Azimuth of the Sun
Mar 7, 2011
Eastern Standard Time
Azimuth is (E of N)

hhmm altitude azumuth in degrees
1530 28.4 237.9
1540 26.7 239.9
1500 24.9 241.9
1600 23.2 243.8
1610 21.4 245.7
1600 19.5 247.5
1630 17.7 249.2
1640 15.8 250.9
1650 13.9 252.6

(I had to take the : out of the times as funny characters kept getting inserted.)
So the sun was abut 23 degrees high at 4pm (1600), and since the shadows are to one side (say about 15 degrees), the phase angle was around 27 degrees (25 to 30).
From the time of day and shadows, we also know the camera was pointed north-east.
It is the phase angle of about 25 to 30 degrees that gives the wonderful feather detail.

Roger

[Michael Lloyd]

Nice image!

I love this site... I really do, but seriously... does anyone actually calculate the phase angle of the sun / moon before they hit the shutter release?

I agree that the proper angle of light is desired however I never get to shoot wildlife in studio conditions and more importantly I don't want to. It's enough for me to to deal with to make sure that I have my settings correct- like ISO, f stop, shutter speed, head angle, body position, is there trash in the image, can I move to solve some of the visual problems that I see and can I do it without spooking the bird (or whatever the wildlife is that I'm shooting).

I can only control lighting to a certain degree. I can pick what time I shoot. I can try to adjust my angle on the "target" so that it's lit as near correctly as it can be. There are locations where that's easy to do (Bosque comes to mind) and then there are locations where I'm grateful for the diffuse light that comes from clouds (Brazos Bend SP comes to mind). I'm not dedicated enough to wade into an alligator infested pond to get the perfect phase angle of the sun. Probably won't ever be. However I am dedicated enough to go early and try to capture a moment that won't ever be repeated.

[Arthur Morris]

I'm with you Michael. Read the light and let er rip :)

Do note that some folks may learn best using a scientific approach. I am not in that group. I use the seat of the pants approach :)

[Michael Lloyd]

I write programs for industrial control systems. Just about every program will have a routine in it with 50 to 100 lines of code that uses all of those fun things that we were supposed to have learned in school like ARCTAN, COS, etc. Personally I didn't learn how to use that stuff until I had to use it in real life... but I digress...

I love photography for it's technicality and because I don't have to use it's technicality to have fun and every now and then create a decent image.

But- I do agree that learning comes in many forms. I've read the posts of all and I like to think that I learned from them. That's what it's all about in the long run...

[Michael Lloyd]

PS- Do you have an extra pair of those pants laying around Artie. I think you could auction off swatches of them and make a killing

[Arthur Morris]

:) on the pants. I have said often that Geroge Lepp has more technical knowledge of photography in one fingernail clipping than I do in my whole brain. And I am fine with that! George BTW is a good friend.

[Roger Clark]

Nice image!

I love this site... I really do, but seriously... does anyone actually calculate the phase angle of the sun / moon before they hit the shutter release?

I agree that the proper angle of light is desired however I never get to shoot wildlife in studio conditions and more importantly I don't want to. It's enough for me to to deal with to make sure that I have my settings correct- like ISO, f stop, shutter speed, head angle, body position, is there trash in the image, can I move to solve some of the visual problems that I see and can I do it without spooking the bird (or whatever the wildlife is that I'm shooting).

I can only control lighting to a certain degree. I can pick what time I shoot. I can try to adjust my angle on the "target" so that it's lit as near correctly as it can be. There are locations where that's easy to do (Bosque comes to mind) and then there are locations where I'm grateful for the diffuse light that comes from clouds (Brazos Bend SP comes to mind). I'm not dedicated enough to wade into an alligator infested pond to get the perfect phase angle of the sun. Probably won't ever be. However I am dedicated enough to go early and try to capture a moment that won't ever be repeated.

Michael,

I think you are making this out to be more difficult than it is. Does anyone calculate the perfect depth of field before pressing the shutter? I don't know anyone who does. Does anyone calculate the optimum ISO before pressing the shutter? Does anyone calculate the perfect head angle? etc.
No, we all estimate things and do what we think is best in the field. No calculations necessary.

Regarding phase angle, it is simple to estimate. If the shadow of your head is landing on the subject, the phase angle is pretty much zero. If the sun is off to your left or right, the phase angle is 90 degrees. If the sun is behind the subject it is 180 degrees (backlit). So if you want a 20 to 40 degree phase angle for good front lighting with fine feather detail, choose where you set up at sunrise so your shadow is off the the left or right some. Estimate where the sun is about one-third the way from directly behind toward your left or right for about 30 degrees. If you have trouble envisioning what 20 to 40 degrees is, carry a protractor for a while. I would bet a session or two with a protractor, that takes a few seconds to look at the angles, would be enough, then you could free-style it.

Depth of field is much harder to grasp.

Roger

[Arthur Morris]

For 28 years I have been working with phase angles of from 0 to only 15 degrees, with the average very close to zero. And I have done OK with that. 40 degrees off sun angle images rarely work for me and often cause myriad problems.

[Roger Clark]

For 28 years I have been working with phase angles of from 0 to only 15 degrees, with the average very close to zero. And I have done OK with that. 40 degrees off sun angle images rarely work for me and often cause myriad problems.

Artie,
The image in this thread is fantastic and from my post in this thread on March 19:

"So the sun was abut 23 degrees high at 4pm (1600), and since the shadows are to one side (say about 15 degrees), the phase angle was around 27 degrees (25 to 30).
From the time of day and shadows, we also know the camera was pointed north-east.
It is the phase angle of about 25 to 30 degrees that gives the wonderful feather detail."

I would like to see a comparison of images at 40 degrees versus 20 versus 0 degrees phase angle to see what issues come up.

Roger