LOL what planet do you live on Radu?! Why would you not just put a sky blue colour in there?!
James, what's the actual color of the bird when you shot this? Just curious.
Jiro, here is another pic of one from Wikipedia Commons.
We always called the "yellow shafted flickers" and west of the Great Plains they are "red shafted flickers", I had no idea they had any other name. Anyway, my comment: I always just keep the shutter clicking and wait for an interesting pose, your pose is sort of like a bug. I will have at least thirty shots, and maybe one keeper in a situation like this
This picture from Wikipedia? The guy must have sat there with his camera shooting, and he caught the one part of a second where the bird broke his tree hugging pose and showed the beautiful underparts. Probably just before it took off to fly. Now this was part persistence and part luck. I have one of an eagle the instant it took off, but it flew the other way :·(. The photographer didn't wait and push the shutter when he saw this happen, unless he has the reflexes of an NHL goalie.
The other thing is that the sky is a very difficult background to shoot against. And, I have no doubt that the guy was using a very fast, high quality lens, in the thousands of dollars. You can tell that the aperture is wide open by that beautiful bokeh. That part is going to be hard to replicate.
Someone here told me that bird shots are very low percentage, and I didn't believe him at the time, but a lot has to fall into place, and only some of it is in your control.
Last edited by tameigh; 23rd March 2011 at 01:04 PM.
Last edited by Radu Dinu Cordeanu; 23rd March 2011 at 03:59 PM.
James, as you were only able to capture a partial view of this bird I would be tempted to try a different crop to remove some of the tree which would concentrate more on the bird.
Possibly try a 4 x 5 ratio portrait format somewhat similar to Tim's sample image.
That is a ton better.
Thanks for your input Radu, the white out sky does kill the image .I"ll pl;ay with some colors...when I"m not shooting , thanks all .
Image two is much better. The low angle of image one is a bit of a problem for me as it is an unattractive angle to see the bird fully. In both images the bird is backlit leading to problems with the background brightness and colour rendition on the bird as it is in shadow. You have no control over where these birds land, your only option is to restrict shooting to situations where the light is behind you or the light is very diffuse and not so unidirectional . Unfortunately that limits the world to about less than 180 degrees field of view; sometimes you have to accept the harshness of nature
I like the composition of image two.
Last edited by tameigh; 24th March 2011 at 09:21 PM.
Sun was behind me on both shots . I personally like image 1 thats close to what it looked like when I took shot. when studying or voyeuring nature we as observers must be happy with what nature offers. ( if that makes sense) Tim what you did to the image make
s his markings more clear , but that bird resembles my picture more. I only offer this information cause I too am just learning . Come to think of it I had circled around for image two and sun was to my left shinig into face of bird .By the way Tim have you seen that big pileated woodpecker(that you posted a while back) anymore?that was a great shot.
I saw the pilliated woodpecker today. They are pretty common around here. I see what you say. I think my version is too bright, but you can get more depth of tone out of the image without destroying the colors. I wasn't able to do it though.
Ive seen one pileated woodpecker around here but he"s very shy of people, I usually see him from 50 or 60 ft. he is 17 or 18 inches tall. the flicker I found their hole about 45 ft. up a tree,they are about 10 or 12 inches tall. They are very shy too.