Baby Robins Feeding

Gallery: AvianPosted June 3, 2011104 views3 comments

This nest just happens to be assembled on a branch about 15 feet below our back deck in the Oakland Hills. My family and I have been keeping an eye on it for several weeks now and have been going out periodically to crouch down behind the deck railing and capture images of the baby bird's development.

This shot was taken around 11:00 AM on 5/21/2011 while the mother was bringing worms back to the nest for her babies. Click here to see more of the time sequence if interested.

Canon 5D Mark II, EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM Lens (+ EF 2x III Extender).
1/100 sec at f/8.0, ISO 1600, 400mm.

Critiques, comments, and/or suggestions are always appreciated!

Comments

3 comments

Comment posted by Steve Balke on June 3, 2011 at 9:52 PM

A touching, interesting shot, Greg. Lots of leaves around but it's pretty tough to do any better with this subject. Some detail evident but I suspect that your lens system is not letting you see more of what is there. I wonder how well a 400 mm prime could do here for example. I particularly like the moment that you chose to capture here.

Registered on June 18, 2009, 229 Posts, 2915 Comments

Comment posted by Greg Linhares on June 4, 2011 at 12:11 PM

Thanks Steve! Yes, the dense amount of leaves all around were definitely not the most desirable. I was lucky that there was at least a large enough opening for me to find an angle that would allow a relatively clear line of sight to the nest! The filtered light coming through all that green foliage also created a bit a problem as it created a pretty strong green color cast over the birds and their nest. I was able to remove the color cast by shifting to about +40 magenta on the white balance tint.

Also, I think that some of the detail may have been smoothed out a bit due to the noise reduction filter (+30). At 1600 ISO, the 5D MK II does very well, but there was still a noticeable amount of noise that I thought needed to be cleaned up. I haven't had an opportunity yet to compare a 400mm prime versus the 70-200mm with 2x III Extender, but I have managed to get some incredibly sharp images with my existing lens system under different lighting conditions.

Thanks for the feedback! Much appreciated!

Registered on June 1, 2011, 10 Posts, 15 Comments

Comment posted by Dennis Plank on June 4, 2011 at 11:24 PM

Nice job in some very difficult lighting conditions, Greg. The natural history aspect more than compensates for the low light problems.

Registered on January 28, 2008, 1767 Posts, 23192 Comments