Blue Gray Gnatcatcher

Gallery: AvianPosted February 5, 2018127 views9 comments

While at the Sawgrass Lake park in St. Petersburg Florida I spotted this little guy busy catching little flies. I was able to capture this one image while he perched for no more than 3 seconds. I did remove a branch in the upper right corner and softened the background a bit. Cropped to about 50% of the original using an Olympus E-M1 MKII with Leica 100-400 at 400mm, 1/250 sec, f6.3 (wide open), ISO 640.

Comments

9 comments

Comment posted by Ed Williams on February 5, 2018 at 11:04 AM

Excellent clarity and detail Steve. Colors are great, nice work on post processing.

Registered on December 28, 2010, 636 Posts, 3499 Comments

Comment posted by Lucy VanSwearingen on February 5, 2018 at 11:42 AM

Nice capture. These fellas are soooo hard to get photos of, as they never stop! I feel like I'm chasing hummingbirds!
I love the BG colors and his perky little stance. Very nice work! crying

Registered on May 23, 2009, 800 Posts, 2042 Comments

Comment posted by Richard Ditch on February 5, 2018 at 12:13 PM

Impressive results with a difficult subject. Nice pose on a simple perch and with a clean setting.

Registered on November 1, 2003, 1031 Posts, 12705 Comments

Comment posted by Dennis Plank on February 5, 2018 at 1:01 PM

A lovely image, Steve. Excellent exposure and detail and I like the composition. Glad to see you posting again.

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

Comment posted by David Schoen on February 5, 2018 at 1:41 PM

A really sweet image. Nice detail, composition and background.

Registered on November 6, 2006, 1213 Posts, 4587 Comments

Comment posted by Bill Leggett on February 5, 2018 at 5:33 PM

Steve, it's nice to see you posting again. This is pretty impressive for such a small bird. And considering only a three second opportunity it must have been hand held. Even at 50% crop you must have been pretty close. It's pretty centered, and so if in the original there's more room to the right and top without distractions, that might allow better "looking into" space and a more balanced comp. I have the same camera and lens, but haven't used it much, shame on me.

Registered on July 21, 2004, 706 Posts, 3233 Comments

Comment posted by Steve Zimic on February 5, 2018 at 5:48 PM

Thanks for all your comments. To Bill's comment on the cropping, I think you're right. I'll take another look at the original and see what lies in the upper right corner. I'm guessing the little guy was about 30 feet away and yes, handheld. Had I still had my old Nikon full frame camera and lenses, I never would have been able to get this shot. Muscles at 70 just aren't what they used to be.

Registered on November 23, 2003, 176 Posts, 727 Comments

Comment posted by Charles Gangas on February 5, 2018 at 10:10 PM

Excellent detail and background with this capture of these super fast little birds . And I agree with Bill's compositional comment. Nice work devil

Registered on August 12, 2009, 544 Posts, 2414 Comments

Comment posted by Steve Thompson on February 9, 2018 at 4:22 PM

Really nice image Steve, love the color palette on it. The details are very sharp. I do agree with the crop suggestion from Bill. Well done!

Registered on August 7, 2014, 125 Posts, 2319 Comments