Vermilion Flycatcher

Gallery: AvianPosted April 4, 2015182 views6 comments

Definitely an experiment here. My last day at the San Pedro river I was trying for some landing shots in woefully inadequate light. I found a technique that got shots by locating the favorite perch of one of the resident males at "Green Kingfisher Pond" (no Kingfishers while I was there). As soon as he left the perch to grab a bug I'd hit the shutter and hold it down until he returned. Most of his trips were quite short, so I got quite a few approach shots. Unfortunately, I just wasn't able to get enough shutter speed. I do have some "just landed" shots that came out pretty well, but most of the approach shots just look like they're poorly focused. This was one of the early ones with the light quite low and therefore quite a bit of motion blur. When I was reviewing the shots, I liked the effect, so I thought I'd throw it out to see what others think.

7Dii, 500mm f4 ISL + 2.0TC, Jobu Gimbal on RRS legs, Cable release, f/8.0, 1/200, iso 1250, aperture priority, center weighted average metering with no compensation. Processed in LR5 & CS6. I cloned out one small oof branch end. I also boosted the saturation on the bird quite a bit. For some reason bright red subjects seem to come out grossly desaturated in the RAW file. Full frame. Taken at 7:51 am on March 12th.

I'd really appreciate your thoughts on this one.

Thanks,

Comments

6 comments

Comment posted by Scott Frye on April 4, 2015 at 5:06 PM

Nice background and perch but the bird is too much oof for my tastes -- 1/200 is simply not enough speed for a BIF

Registered on February 3, 2007, 387 Posts, 1136 Comments

Comment posted by Keith Bauer on April 4, 2015 at 8:58 PM

Interesting experiment, but I have to say it doesn't work for me. If the angle was different and at least some sharpness in the bird is could work.

Registered on November 20, 2003, 458 Posts, 4836 Comments

Comment posted by Kurt Bowman on April 4, 2015 at 9:18 PM

Hi Dennie, so glad to see someone experimenting and stepping out of the box. With that said, I do wish at least the head was sharp, or the perch wasn't sharp....it just doesn't work as well for me since the perch is sharp. The perch then draws my eye and almost competes with your subject.

Registered on June 19, 2008, 1005 Posts, 8028 Comments

Comment posted by Ken Watkins on April 5, 2015 at 2:43 AM

Dennis,
Always worth a try but the light was against you, why F8?

Registered on December 15, 2010, 1537 Posts, 4877 Comments

Comment posted by Hans Overduin on April 5, 2015 at 6:13 AM

Always respect anyone experimenting... Have been thinking about it, and I guess you could do with the branch in this shot. Then you have a blurred, but still recognizable as such Vermillion FC and having it in the ULC makes it all the more interesting... Why not ?

, Happy Easter, hans

Registered on August 31, 2011, 491 Posts, 3807 Comments

Comment posted by Howard Cheek on April 5, 2015 at 3:11 PM

I've done my share of small birds inflight, so I appreciate the experiment.
Ya just gotta have enough light as you know, and a lighter/brighter BG usually works best..
Keep up it up Dennis. You have try, try, and try again as they say

Registered on July 24, 2008, 1201 Posts, 10758 Comments