
by Dennis Plank
Skipping from what is fast becoming ancient history to just a couple of days ago, I went out on our local prairie mostly for the wildflowers that are just about at peak. We live in the Mima Mounds formation, so the prairies are full of small mounds. The perch this Savannah chose was sticking up from the backside of one of them, so I had lots of oof wildflowers in the foreground and bg. At this moment, he was reacting to a rival that got a bit too close.
7Dii, 500mm f4 ISL + 1.4TC, balanced on a wadded up vest on the car window sill, f/8, 1/2500, iso 800, aperture priority, partial metering (playing with metering modes to see if there's one that works better for me), no compensation. Processed in LR5 & CS6. Minor adjustments to the bird, left the bg alone except for noise reduction. Cropped to 17.8MP from the original 20 for a bit better composition.
Your comments and criticisms are really appreciated.
Thanks for looking and your previous comments.
Comments
10 commentsHi Dennis, a tough location it seems to shoot in, but a nice change. Like the postings by John L & Hans, I particularly like the scale of subject within frame. Might be the light, however the colours do appear a little flat/muted to me???
TFS
Steve
Superb image, wonderful pose and nicely small positioned in the frame ! Love the BG texture as well.
, Cheers, Hans
I'll echo what Hans has said, Like it - and the Bg is superb.
John
Great looking monochromatic frame & it's a teriffic pose Dennis.
Excellent comp & detailed stop-action, very nice
Very nice, Dennis. I'm glad to see more compositions like this one that aren't taken up by just the subject. Great colors on this one. I like how the background colors complement the bird so well.
Dennis,
The large image is a must, crop really emphasise the size of this tiny bird.
Amazing capture

Dennis:
I like this very much. Very nice use of the environment to show off the bird. Nicely selected aperture to get enough depth, but still keep the background smooth.
A very special image Dennis. The posture of the bird and the simple yet wonderfully muted background makes for an outstanding composition.
The background flowers really make the image, IMO. It's only a pity there weren't more of them.
Max
Images such as this that include more of the habitat are always appealing to me. You have captured some good action here with a good choice of settings. I like the oof flowere in the BG. Well done.