Bunting Battle
May, 2014Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
This image was taken through my patio door window which goes out to my deck. We recently moved to the country and I quickly discovered how much fun it was to feed the birds and photograph them. We have VERY long winters in Wisconsin so I had a lot of time to practice taking these images through the patio door. As long as I stayed relativly still the birds go about there business at the feeder dispite that I'm only a few feet from them. I've been known to sit there for hours waiting for the right bird and the right pose! As winter turned in the spring the variety of birds increased. These bright blue Indigo Buntings had just arrived at the feeders a few days before I took this. I knew it would not be long before they would be moving along to nest up north for the summer.Time
This was taken around 8:30 am on May 12, 2014Lighting
That morning a quick thunderstorm rolled through and this glorious light followed. The background is a beautiful ash tree which filtered the light perfectly. The abundance of light and 2.8 aperture allowed for a fast shutter speed to capture the action and that nice background blur. My ISO was set at 400 to allow for a faster shutterspeed.Equipment
Canon 6D with 70-200 mm f 2.8 lens mounted on a tripod. Wide open with exposure compensation at -2/3. I always get my lens as close to the window as possible. Shut off all indoor lights to eliminate reflections in the window. I use a clear UV filter to protect my lens in case I would bump the lens into the window. I use back button focus with a trigger release cable keeping that focus and esposure locked in so that I can avoid looking in the eyepiece. Keeping my head up so I can see a larger field a view and anticipate the birds movement.Inspiration
After posting my bird photos on View Bug and social media I was getting lots of good feedback and I think this just encouraged me to work at getting that perfect shot. I remember that awesome feeling of looking in the LCD screen and knowing that I got an amazing shot.Editing
I used lightroom 4 to for post-processing. Cropped into the image and increased the exposure and vibrance levels while darkening the blacks to make the colors pop.In my camera bag
Canon 6D, 24-105mm f/4 lens, 70-200mm f/2.8 lens. Cable release. Canon 600 EX-RT flash. Tiffen Circular Polarizer, Tiffen ND filters.Feedback
1. Fast Shutter speed is so important to freeze action. Birds move very fast and generally I try to get that speed up to 1/500 of a sec or faster. Sometimes that means I need to increase my ISO. Using a camera that works well at higher ISO's can really help with this type of shot. 2. Don't be afraid to shoot through a window. Most of the time you can't even tell. 3. Use a tripod to eliminate camera shake to get the sharpest image possible. 4. Keep your camera zoomed out a bit so that you can capture action over a larger area and then crop in post-processing. 5. I placed bird seed on the deck railing so the birds would come in close. 6. My goal with post-processing is to achieve the vibrance of the colors and details that I see with my eyes. I'm careful not to over do the enhancements. When I first started photography my goal was to keep my images as "Pure" as possible. I was frustrated that my camera often did not capture those perfect colors, details or light just as I saw them. As my knowledge increased, I started to understand my camera's limitations and realized that post -processing was a way to more accuratly capture scenes as I saw them in nature.
