Another naked bird...

[Mr Darcy]

We don't often see these little beasties at home.


Thanks for looking
Critique welcome.

[Matt. K]

Not bad....but you still need to get a little closer.

[surenj]

good shot but looks a bit noisy/blurry to me

[Mr Darcy]

Yes its a bit blurry, but I like it anyway.
I shot wide open and a full extension. My old eyes don't help the focus either. For that matter, the gang gang didn't exactly sit up & say cheese.
Photo was taken about 3m from the bird with an ancient 100-300 f5.6 ZoomNikkor (made long before Nikon discovered alphabet soup)
It is heavily cropped as most of the bird was hidden by branches.
For lighting I used the onboard flash at full power also triggering two SB800's in SU-4 mode. I suspect one of the 800s did not fire on this shot as the original darker is than some of the others I took. The gang gang didn't seem at all fazed by the idiot firing flashes at him. She was in the tree too, but too well hidden to get a good view.

Here is the original, just resized:

[CraigVTR]

Greg
I is a little soft, but you did well to get the shot. It is a magnificent bird.

[BullcreekBob]

Nice shot. A little noisy or grainy but difficult conditions can do that and wildlife just doesn't behave properly in the controlled and better lighting of a studio.

I prefer the original to the crop. If I were going to crop at all, I'd just remove a little from the top changing the image ratio from 2:3 (or 4:6) to 4:5