Northern Mockingbird, the State Bird of TEXAS-Down the Barrel
I am a fifth generation Texan, and I have always wondered why the mockingbird was chosen as the state bird. After watching this particular mockingbird for several hours last month, and many of his kin through the years, I now understand. Mockingbirds, like most Texans, are all about ATTITUDE. They are brash, rowdy, aggressive, and most of all loud. A perfect avian fit for a great state.
Rainy morning in late February, south Texas. Nikon D700, Nikon 500 f/4 with Kenko 1.4 TC.
ISO 800 1/125 f/5.6 Gimbaled tripod in a popup blind. Post in LR3, cropped, exposure adjusted, little vibrance, sharpened and NR and a fairly generous post crop vignette to make the bird stand out. Cloned out a small branch in CS5, sized and sharpened.
One think I noted is looking through these down the barrel images, is how hard it is to get a lot of features in focus.
Thanks for suggesting this topic. These are very interesting.
This one has attitude written all over it. Pretty darn grumpy looking!
Well exposed, nice BG, interesting perch.
You are right about the challenges of getting a lot of the bird in focus when doing straight down the barrel shots. THe DOF is such that only a small amount of the bird will be sharp.
It looks like perhaps the focus point was on the upper chest, but hard to tell for certain, as it is a little soft to my eyes. You obviously didn't have a lot of light to work with, and with that shutter speed and that focal length, you may be getting a little motion blur as well.
I could see a minor crop down from the top to make the branch work the diagonal of the frame even more.
Northern Mockingbird, the State Bird of TEXAS-Down the Barrel
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