Blue Jay

[Joel Eade]

One of my backyard setups
1D3
300mm 2.8L + 1.4 TCII
Tripod
Manual exposure
580EXII + Better Beamer at -1 1/3 stops
iso 1600
f/4.5
1/320

ACR, CS5, cleaned up the end of the perch a little with the clone stamp and removed the flash catchlight otherwise just routine processing

[William Malacarne]

Joel

Very nice colors and detail. IMO could use a little more room on the left and in most cases a catch light is preferable.

Bill

[gail bisson]

Very nice picture. Lovely BG. Why did you take catchlight out? I thought a catchlight was a good thing? I like the feather detail and softness of the picture. Nice head angle
Gail

[Chris Ober]

Catch light is a good thing :) Very nice all around. The only thing I would want different is a prettier stick.

[John Goldman]

William, Gail, and Chris said it all.
I will add only, "very nice image!"

[Kerry Perkins]

Hi Joel, nice capture of this colorful bird. I like the sharpness, color rendition, and head angle. Your techs look great, very much what I would have done with the flash and beamer - I'm usually shooting my 400mm at with the same flash and the same settings you have here. Nice use of the flash for fill! The litmus test for fill flash is that it shouldn't look like flash at all and you did a super job with it. Nicely done. I usually only remove the flash catch light if there was already one there from the sun. The eye looks dead without any light in it at all.

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Great background, muted and looks natural. Detail is solid given the shutter speed, assume low light. Love the look, always enjoy possible frame of mind subjects might have. Eye-level image is a big bonus. Regarding the catch light, try it with and without.