ayandas

Munia

NIKON D90

Aperture f/2.8 ISO 400 Shutter 1/2500

upload_date

Oct, 2013

Views

221

Likes

+10

Awards

Zenith Award

Creative Winter Award

Curator's Selection

Top Shot Award 21

Legendary Award

Outstanding

Top Choice

+16

Superb Composition

+13

Absolute Masterpiece

+11

Outstanding Creativity

+10

Exceptional Contrast

Peer Award

Top Ranks

Top 20 rank

Top 20 rank week 1

Top 20 rank

Top 20 rank week 1

Top 10 rank

Top 20 rank week 1

Top 10 rank

Top 10 rank week 2

Top 10 rank week 1

Top 20 rank

Top 10 rank week 2

Top 10 rank week 1

Behind The Lens

Location

This was shot from my bedroom balcony in Bangalore, India. Such bird conference takes place once in a while and always I was unprepared to click. Not being a bird photography enthusiast, I never prepared myself to capture the event, although my daughter kept on insisting for it since long. Finally, that day I took my camera out for routine cleaning and clicked, the moment my daughter spotted them gathering again...since then, bird photography is also in my list to learn.

Time

It was late morning, most probably on a weekend or may be a holiday. I lazily took my camera and lenses out for routine cleaning. My daughter alerted me, knowing my intent to click the conference once. I grabbed the opportunity and both of us felt very happy with the result.

Lighting

It was not easy to get the right amount of light in broad daylight with lot of reflection from the building behind. I tried couple of shots on auto but could not control the metering for the desired exposure. Finally I resorted to manual mode and used larger aperture for shallow DOF and the final balancing I had done in PP.

Equipment

It was a handheld shot in my Nikon D90. I used Nikkor 80-200 f2.8. The challenge was to click without a shake as the tree leaf the three were sitting was responding to the breeze with a small shake. Larger aperture for shallower DOF helped me to keep the shutter speed high and managed to avoid the shake to a great extent.

Inspiration

My daughter. She found the bird conference fascinating, primarily due to the fashion they cling to the vertical leaf and keep swaying with the breeze. I could not disappoint her when she saw me sitting with the camera for cleaning and spotted the birds clinging to the leaves again.

Editing

Yes, post processing is must for me to create the right balance between uniform exposure and colour saturation. Not photoshop, I use Lightroom to post process my photos. In order to get closest resemblance between the click and what my eye saw, post processing is a must. I always click in raw format and then find it convenient formatting as lot of details can be unearthed from the underexposed part of the photograph.

In my camera bag

I do not normally carry my camera bag without an objective. When I get time, or when I am on a holiday, I pick-up one theme to photograph and do some studies beforehand for the same. So, selection of equipment flows from such studies. However, when I am on holiday, generally I carry all my gears as a luggage and pick-up whatever I need for the day and carry only so much with me.

Feedback

I find larger aperture lenses are more effective for bird photography so that shutter speed can be kept higher. Since the subjects (birds) are never too close to the lens, DOF handling is never a challenge with larger aperture. Post processing is a must for any daylight photography and there is no exception for bird photography.

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ayandas

ayandas

Munia

Behind The Lens

See more amazing photos, follow ayandas

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