Saltmarsh Sparrow II

Nice lighting and pose of the sparrow. Nice results for hand holding this shot

Beautiful shot Luke and very impressive that it was handheld. Wonderful light and pose on the sparrow and great sharpness in the piece of grass as well as the sparrow

Excellent shot, Luke! I like the pose and the light is just perfect.

Very nice warm light, and I love the setting and pose as well. Nicely done!

nice pose, comp, and warm light, Luke. in the larger version there's not quite as much fine detail in the bird as I'd hope for.

Interesting pose with the feet so far apart.

Brian,

That would be due to the high ISO (I don't like going above 800 in such low light, so 1250 was pushing it) and the crop of almost 40%

You've had great fortune with this species. Nice work.

Lovely light and pose Luke. Oh for a tripod and a lower ISO????

cheers
Rob

Incredibly warm light, Luke. Beautiful pose. In the larger image, it looks like there's some loss of detail due to noise. Coming from the land of no sun, I'm used to shooting at much lower shutter speeds on perched birds. I think you could have gotten away with it here if it wasn't too windy.

Dennis,

Thanks for your comments. This issue wasn't so much wind (it was relatively calm) but these birds were perching on spartina grass blades, which aren't so sturdy. I still don't know how this bird was able to hold on parallel like this - there is usually a lot of swaying when they go from blade to blade and that's what dictated a high SS.

I also had been shooting them at ground level where there was less light and this one happend to hop up on the grass. I could have lowered the ISO to 800 most likely and gotten away with it but live and learn.

I will post another photo of this species from later in the morning in this upcoming week that was at a lower ISO (but of course had less warmth)

Lovely light and pose, Luke. I think you got some nice detail despite the high ISO. I would crop this to a traditional 3:2.

A great species and pose you caught here Luke. At first I thought it was a little dark but looking at the large image I think it works fine and was probably consistent with the conditions. I agree if you could have gotten away with a lower shutter speed and iso it would have improved this.

Luke, nice shot, but the high ISO and somewhat large crop takes its toll on the detail in this image. Not sure how often you hand hold your shots, but with practice hand holding the set up you used for this shot and getting tack sharp images is well within reach. I almost never use a tripod, they just slow me down too much.

Luke,

I envy you the opportunity with this species, I find them very lovely, but oh so difficult to photograph. Nice light, pose and eye contact.