Blue Capped Rock Thrush
A visitor from Himalayas spends the winter time in Southern India, it can be spotted during the mid-day until evening. Thrush family is famous for their disting...
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A visitor from Himalayas spends the winter time in Southern India, it can be spotted during the mid-day until evening. Thrush family is famous for their distinguished calls in the morning.
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Dec, 2015Views
357
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Awards
Staff Winter Selection 2015
Peer Award
Superb Composition
Absolute Masterpiece
Top Choice
All Star
Outstanding Creativity
Magnificent Capture
Emotions
Impressed
Top Ranks
Top 30 rankTop 30 rank week 1Categories
Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
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Behind The Lens
Location
Ganeshgudi, Karnataka - a paradise for bird photographers. Situated in the amidst of Dandeli forest, this place is known for its congregation of delightful birds - Oriental White Eye family, Rusty tailed flycatchers, Black Naped Monarchs, Asian Paradise Flycatchers, Emerald Doves, Purple Sun bird, Rock Thrush, Malabar Trush, Great Hornbill, Pied Hornbill, Grey Hornbill, and many more species.Time
Dandeli forest is known for its rich heritage, and usually birds get enough water in the early morning. Courtesy - thick fog which leaves water in the flowers. As the day progresses, the forest dries up by afternoon, humidity picks up and birds travel to this place to have some water. Ganeshgudi has created man made water bodies to help these species to get required water during the end of day. Birds arrive in huge number (between 3 PM to 5 PM) at this location and leaves all the photographers in a dilemma (which one to click). Birds wait in a Queue to get into water, and this Thrush was waiting for its turn as well.Lighting
Due to the thick cover of trees, this part of the forest loses light by 4 PM. I was shooting in Aperture mode with ISO set to 1000 to get enough light on the bird. As you see, the bird is actually inside the light and I was shooting directly at the light. I had to change my composition to get the correct amount of light on the bird, I got to my knees and saw that I had a beautiful Bokeh being formed in the background. With exposure meter set to +1, I could get enough light on the bird with this position.Equipment
Nikon D610, Nikorr 80-400mm F5.6 Lens, handheld shot.Inspiration
The place itself inspires you to go and learn photography. As a photographer you get all day to shoot, and experiment different settings in your camera. This place get Birds in huge numbers, and unpredictable amount of birds come in a particular time of the day, and you need to be ready with your set up. This inspires me to go every time to this place and make memorable images.Editing
Yes, the most portion of the background was lit with the more white light, I had to control that highlights from Photoshop and Lightroom. I also worked on Shadows and Curves to get the ample exposure in the image. I used high pass filter to get required sharpness in the image and also reduced a tiny bit of color noise in the image.In my camera bag
In particular to this place, I carry two bodies Nikon D610 and Nikon D750, two lenses 105mm Macro and 500mm F4 lens with 1.4x teleconverter. Manfrotto tripod and binoculars - sometimes I just watch them and stay in peace :-)Feedback
If you visit to a place where there are lot of birds to capture, find a bird which is performing more activity, stay with the bird - don't go close to the bird. Keep watching the bird, be patient, it's that very tiny window where you will make a memorable image. Good luck!! Also, always practice your camera settings without looking into the LCD screen, work with camera buttons more often. Always be ready to click!!!
