Photo
Jan, 2015Views
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Awards
Winner in Animal Photo In Black and White Photo Challenge
Superb Composition
Top Choice
Absolute Masterpiece
Outstanding Creativity
Peer Award
All Star
Superior Skill
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Behind The Lens
Location
This was taken in of all places a parking lot. The parking lot of Waimea Falls on the island of Oahu. My wife and I were there visiting and went to the falls so I could photograph them. When we pulled into the lot we saw a group of people gathered and some flashes going off, thinking nothing of It didn't even pull out my camera. As we got out of the car we noticed the peacock in full strut was the center of attention. That's when I got the camera out but by then he had enough and put the tail down and walked right by me between the cars. We went on our way and discovered that park was closing early that evening and I wasn't going to have the time I wanted, so I went out to find the peacock. This time I had an almost empty parking lot and the bird all to myself.Time
It was early evening in the first part of February so the sun was lower in the sky.Lighting
With the sun lower in the sky and the parking lot sitting in the bit of a bowl, it created an open shade type light, with light reflecting from a building and the few cars left in the lot. I had plenty of room to work and was going to try and get the bird to move for different lighting. It was not easy. I kept moving toward the bird and he would move a little one way or the other and I finally got him to a spot that had just a hint of reflected back light and some from the side and began shooting brackets, just as fast as I could because the light was fading.Equipment
I only used a Canon Rebel XS or what is also known as a 1000d, and a sigma 70-300mm 3.5-5.6 non-image stabilized lens hand held. I had to work fast and be very mobile so equipment needed to be something I could use quickly. No flash as I did not want the flash to get the bird anymore worked up than he was.Inspiration
The peacock itself was the inspiration for this photo. Anything that can bring such beauty to an other wise stark place is an inspiration.Editing
The post processing was really very simple as I shot on this trip in jpeg, for space concerns as I was shooting a lot. I did everything in Lightroom 4, Basic exposure and contrast adjustments to remove some of the hot spots, minor sharpening and noise reduction, then did a B&W conversion, minor color filter slider adjustments to help with tonality, and brightened up the eye with the spot adjustment brush. All very basic adjustment, I am an old film and darkroom black and white guy so I like to keep my editing of photos simple if I can.In my camera bag
My bag now is a lot more complex than on this trip. It will change depending on what I am doing at the time, for general purpose must have, 2 Pro camera bodies, 50mm 1.8 l, 17-40mm 4.0l, 70-200mm 2.8 is II l, 24-105mm 4.0 l, at least 1 flash, 2 radio flash triggers, tripod, light stand, at least a white shoot through umbrella, grey card, lens cleaning equipment, extra batteries for everything, clamp, tape, and a reflector of some kind, small note book and pen, and camera and flash manuals, business cards,( and I wonder why I had to have back surgery) This seems like a lot but, I have been caught to many times wishing I had this or that with me so I made notes and anytime that item came up repeatedly it became a permanent fixture in the bag.Feedback
Trying to capture photos like this are a challenge at times first getting access to the birds. I was blessed with a free roaming bird in a parking lot in Hawaii, but how often do you get to just walk up to a peacock everyday. I know some zoos and wild animal parks have them walking around freely so you can move around them. Be patient, these birds have a mind of their own and do things as they want to do them and won't be forced to preform. Be mobile, if you are able to be close you want to be able to move, peacocks are beautiful but, can also get territorial and come at you. Be able to compose on the fly when they are strutting they don't move really fast but they will turn around on you and you'll want to get back to front or side for shots. Know your equipment, I shot this photo with a 70-300mm 3.5-5.6 sigma zoom with no image stabilization hand held. I kept the lens at 70mm to maintain the f3.5-5.0 aperture for two reasons, maximum amounts of light to keep my shutter speeds up, and ISO down. The lens will stop itself down as you zoom causing all kinds of missed shots. Raising the ISO will allow for shooting in less light but sacrifice image quality. So knowing this going in I controlled what I could by using the max apertures to reduce the ISO as much as I could to hand hold for my shots. The brackets would change things up but I wanted to keep at least 1/125 shutter speed for hand holding so the aperture was having to change between 3.5-5.0 for the way I set my brackets. One more thing that every photographer should probably do is test yourself and see how slow a shutter speed you can hand hold with your longest lenses. It's just another piece of information that is nice to have when you need it. The last thing I can give is that the eyes are truly the soul of shot. A good sharply focused eye or eyes really bring the shot to life, and these particular birds have very dark eyes, but if you really look you can see they have color in there. Try to highlight those eyes to bring them up it rally brings life to the photo and not just a black hole.
