Verdin

Gallery: AvianPosted October 30, 2010142 views13 comments

I am in Arizona, attending some mandatory training. Death by Powerpoint! I do get the weekends off, and this morning I found this Verdin at Sweetwater, which is a series of water reclamation ponds near Tucson.

Olympus e3
Olympus ZD 300 f2.8 w/2x
ISO 200
f5.7
-.7 ev
1/2000th
80% of FF
Neat Image on the bg

Comments and critiques welcome. Thanks.

Comments

13 comments

Comment posted by SandyRichardsBrown on October 30, 2010 at 10:43 PM

Any time you can squeeze out for the Gilbert Water Ranch?
I like this image a lot.
Great pose and eye contact, and the blurry wings really add interest.
Well-done!
Sandy r

Registered on November 24, 2003, 3937 Posts, 12909 Comments

Comment posted by Nate Chappell on October 30, 2010 at 10:53 PM

Awesome to get him just at take off like this Mike, love the wing spread. The image looks a little bit dark on my monitor, great action.

Registered on February 1, 2006, 1158 Posts, 19528 Comments

Comment posted by Keith Bauer on October 30, 2010 at 11:12 PM

Beautiful wings on this guy. Love the small amount of motion in them as well. Agree with Nate on the overall brightness. Simple enough to bring it up. Nice image.

Registered on November 20, 2003, 458 Posts, 4836 Comments

Comment posted by Michael Twaddell on October 30, 2010 at 11:21 PM

You all may be right about the exposure, I am on my work computer, so no calibrated monitor...... Thanks Sandy, I am looking up the Gilbert Water Ranch right now. I needed something to do tomorrow anyway!

Registered on August 16, 2007, 199 Posts, 2132 Comments

Comment posted by Richard Ditch on October 30, 2010 at 11:50 PM

Nice action but a bit dark. Why did you use -0.7 ev on this?

The Gilbert Water Ranch is about 100 miles from Sweetwater so you'll be burning a lot of time driving that could be used shooting closer to Tucson. But if you head up to Gilbert the "best" bird there at the moment is this Eared Grebe in pond 6 just south of the library. The Black Tern I found there on Monday hung around for a couple of days but seems to have moved on.

I have a photographer's overview of the Water Ranch on my web site as well as a number of representative photos of a number of common species to be found there.

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

Comment posted by Michael Twaddell on October 31, 2010 at 1:07 AM

Richard, to answer your question, the -.7ev is because I run Olympus! You have to run -.3 to -.7 at all times, then bring it up in RAW. Otherwise, you will blow the whites every time. I just neglected to bring it up as much as I should have, cause I am on a different laptop. Thanks for all of the information, I am planning on heading up there tomorrw, if I can get out of bed at 4 am! We'll see! There is nothing much going on in the Tucson area that I have found, and I don't have much else to do!

Registered on August 16, 2007, 199 Posts, 2132 Comments

Comment posted by Ron Bielefeld on October 31, 2010 at 5:26 AM

Mike, nice action shot and overall comp. I like the blurred wings, but do wish the birds head was sharper as it is a bit soft from motion blur I suspect.

Registered on December 6, 2008, 360 Posts, 7132 Comments

Comment posted by Monica Siri on October 31, 2010 at 11:51 AM

Mike,
beautiful action shot. A bit dark for me too.

Registered on September 20, 2009, 132 Posts, 3764 Comments

Comment posted by Jim DeWitt on October 31, 2010 at 4:48 PM

Superb, Mike. Well worth the PP Punishment. If it were mine (and I'm an Oly user, too) I'd have been at -0.3ev and not -.7ev. A minor nit on a fine shot.

And another recommendation to get to Gilbert Water Ranch if you can; esp. in the early AM, it's outstanding.

Registered on August 28, 2006, 1240 Posts, 8506 Comments

Comment posted by May Haga on October 31, 2010 at 5:42 PM

Great action Mike.
May

Registered on February 22, 2007, 714 Posts, 8470 Comments

Comment posted by Ron Dudley on October 31, 2010 at 7:13 PM

The wing spread and eye contact are very good MIke. Agree that it's a little dark and that the head could be slightly sharper but you had excellent timing here. Hope you had good luck at the Water Ranch.