Blue tit

Another from "birds in flight" project. It's incredible how bad is Canon's 500mm lens in backlight situation.

Cheers,
Marko

Marko can't comment on Canon lens I'm a Nikon man.it looks like your lens can certainly catch birds in flight ,tiny nit but maybe a little more canvas at the top if you have it.It's a real good looking image.

Keith.

Exposure looks better than in the Great Tit photo and the wing position shows the feathers nicely.

Have you used an artificial background?

Thanks for the comments you two!

Yes Nick, I did use the artificial background. There is no way around it currently, because flash that is the only light would cause unpleasantly black shadows. I'm thinking about, how to implement natural light for this kind of project. With current line of cameras, it might be possible, but this is still in my head. The background is a print of photo of out of focus vegetation.

Cheers,
Marko

Marko you have given me an idea I never thought of making an artificial background, the Bg in my garden is awful.

Thanks Keith.

technically superb, but I find the feather refraction a little distracting, but not sure how you can overcome that other than diffusing the flash output somehow

Hi Mike,

Harsh light is a problem with speedlite type of flash, that I'm currenty use. Unfortunatelly this lights are too weak to think of any diffusion. I would need much more powerful flash. But they are very pricy.

Marko

Personally I've never been keen on flash to capture small birds in motion. I do recognise how difficult and technical this type of shot can be, but always the end results leave me cold. Birds in flight that are frozen in the frame are great for counting feathers, but for me I need to see movement.

John

A great shot of what must be a very challenging subject to achieve this with. Certainly an idea worth persevering with.

Chris.

Lovely action shot and great pose. I do feel there is a slight green cast in the image wich could be corrected.
The artificial BG works well but it would be nicer if you could get this done without using too much flash.

greetings,

Jeroen Stel