Some Chipping Sparrow

[Eric CAN]

Caught these today, I was actually reseting the camera when he landed right in front of me, LOL



I was trying to apply a trick I explained to Norm in his thread, I used F/10 to get more of the bird in DOF, it was still not enough, only way would have been to reduce the focal length of the Bigma, this bird was really really close to me, less than 14 feet.



Blown some highlights on that one, I was at 1/250 sec, should have went to 1/400, but everything happened too fast

Larger image and EXIF here :

http://www.bytephoto.com/photopost/s...mp;ppuser=1867

Cheers everyone :-)

[Normcar]

Color, sharpness and poses are dynamic, Eric. Why is the background dark? Did you use fill flash here? I was forced to use fill flash today so that's why I ask. I'm beginning to think that some birds don't mind it and others do. I think the hummers do but the chickadees don't seem to care less. What do you think?

[Eric CAN]

Good question Norm, I don't have a good flash, only the onboard one. Reason why the background is so dark, my little secret :-)

Actually its simple, the background is cedar trees that were not lit by the sun anymore and the bird and the tree was still lit :lol:Even then as you can see, some highlights were burned out, imagine if I chose to go at 1/320 or 1/400, the background would be even more darker :lol:

Thanks and cheers !

[Normcar]

I thought that something like that would be the answer. Applause to your choice of photo background, distance, lighting, and other, and of course the lens that both of us enjoy.

[Eric CAN]

Hehe Norm, this is my favorite type of background, I seek for these, LOL

Another example of this kind of background I cherrish :





This was taken last winter at a friend's place in the woods. The background was a mixture of spruce trees, but it was at the flank of a hill, so no sunshine could reach it. And the bird was heavily lit by the sun, but this one was better metered to start with

Cheers

[photosbyvito]

great shots eric! i can see why you like that background! nice and dark (on the last one) and so far out of focus, it's just large blotches of color

nicely done once again eric! clarity, DOF, sharpness, beautiful...

Vito

[aladyforty]

great shots, love the first one.

[zoomn]

Very nice clear shots!

What type bird is the last shot you posted. That is a nicely colored bird and an excellent shot of it.

[Eric CAN]

Ahh the last one is a Common Redpole, I don't know how south they go in the upper states, but are quite seen a lot in winter here in Southern Canada :-)

They live in the Canadian Tundra in summer, I been following them all winter and departed around mid April for their reproduction area. Not very shy at all like the Chikedee and Tree Swallow. One of the first day I went to take photos of them at my friends place in the woods, one of them actually landed on my zoom, I looked at him and said "eh you have to pose in front of the lens, not on it" LOL

Some other shots taken last winter :



Not 100% sure, this is a variant of the common, it's a Hoary redpole



And a common one



Cheers

[ohenry]

Eric, do you use fill flash when shooting birds?

Edit: Never mind, I just saw your earlier comment