Chipping Sparrow

[Eric Patdu]

Chipping Sparrow
Canon EOS 60D, Canon EF 300mm f/4L IS + 1.4x, 1/500 sec, f/6.3, ISO 3200, +1 EV, hand-held

[Doug West]

Eric...nice capture of the sparrow. Although the background is less than ideal, it does
show the bird in its natural habitat, which is great. Plus, you don't have any of the
branches intersecting the main part of the sparrow, which is also good..

It might be hard to notice unless one really looks at the pic, but you did a good job
in including the small twig in the sparrow's beak.

Just one question...did you use flash? He seems a little bright to me. Maybe just
tone him down a tad.

Doug

[jack williamson]

The sparrow is nice and sharp and I like the material in the beak. I see a lot of unusual catchlight in the eye and is this really ISO 3200?

Jack

[Eric Patdu]

@Doug, thanks for the comments. I did not put the twig on the bird's beak, the bird was really holding it on its beak. There were actually 2 of them fleeting around so I guess they are building a nest. I also did not use any flash on the bird. I guess the high ISO must have been the reason for the brightness.

@Jack, thanks too for the comments. The light coming through the trees in front of the bird gave the unusual catch light. The ISO is really 3200 as I was shooting in a shade. I have the ISO on auto and that's what the camera decided to set. It's good that the 60D handles high ISO nicely.