Female Northern Cardinal

[Joel Eade]

Setup in my yard

1D MKIV
700mm
Tripod
Manual mode
Spot metering off the bird's head -1 stop
ISO 5000
f/5.6
1/160
580 EXII + Better Beamer ETTL -3 stops

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Joel,

Really like this one the flash is spot on and does not affect the background giving a nice foreground and background separation. I find the lens angle creative and displays a unique side to this beautiful cardinal. You continue to get better with sharpness and detail and unique composition - really good work here.

[Kerry Perkins]

Hi Joel, just the right amount of sharpening in this one for my eye. I like the inquisitive look and crouched pose. She is really checking you out! A couple of things I see - I would evict the flash catch light in the eye and there is some banding in the bg. The banding artifact is caused by bit-depth reduction, usually committed by noise reduction filters. What it looks like in this image is green clouds in the bg. If you can correct that I think the image will be stronger.