Western Meadowlark

I like the detail in the feathers in the first one, while the second is a more typical shot of the meadowlark's colorful breast. Both taken at Quivera National Wildlife Refuge over Thanksgiving with EOS 30D and EF 100-400 at 400mm, ISO 800 and f/8.0. The first was exposed at 1/2000, and the second at 1/4000. C&C welcome.

Content warning: NOT AN IMAGE

Content warning: NOT AN IMAGE

Number 2 is my favorite. I'd like to see a horizontal crop with some open area to the right. Both shots enhance beautifully with a bit of sharpening and noise reduction. / ~Sam

Both have been processed with Neat Image to remove noise (and to sharpen). Do you think these are noisy yet?

I agree with your comment about the cropping. I cropped these this way to print 4x6 for my files, and did not recrop for posting. If I were to print them for display, I would probably use a landscape format.

Thanks for your comments.

This lens shines when you have the light for it. I'm impressed. I'm even more impressed he let you get even that close.

Excellent captures, the frontal view is the best. They are hard to close to, all I have is a beak peeking up above the grass. Of course, it was a shy California bird.

That part of Kansas was overflowing with meadowlarks last weekend. As you drove down the side roads, you would flush out dozens at a time. This particular bird, of which I took 60 or so shots, was the least shy of any, and stayed put for several minutes.

Thanks for the comments. The 100-400 is indeed wonderful in good light.

Well done PK. Any reason you were use an ISO of 800? It looks as if you had lots of light.

Beautiful shots of a striking bird. I love meadowlarks and they are one of the toughest birds to get shots of. For ISO 800 it sure looks clean. I was wondering too why you used 800. I've done that by mistake occasionally when I'm coming out of the woods and into brighter light.

I've found that the 30D performs very well at ISO 800. Odd, but true.

I especially likre the second shot although i think underexpossing it with exposure compensation by 1/3 to 1/2 F stop could have taken the edge off and saturated the bird more. The 30D is indeed quite capable of 800 ISO but in good light I will drop her down to 100 ISO if i have a chance . If we could shoot at 100 ISO all the time then noise reduction software would be obsolete. I used to occasionaly shoot Koadachrome 25 ISO ( ok it was ASA back then) and you could blow those puppies up to 17 X 20 and there just wasn't any noise/grain to be found....super tight!!

Inquiring minds want to know !

These shots were taken at ISO 800 because the day started out very foggy. I wasn't getting much of anything worthwile for the first hour or so I was out, but I had it set at 800 just in case I saw something close by. When I ran across this meadowlark, the fog had just cleared, but I had not changed the setting, and did not take the time to do so. As it turned out, he posed for a long time, and I could have made the switch. Neat Image does wonders, however, and I am quite pleased with the final result.

(I did lower the ISO shortly after taking these, BTW.)

Very nice captures, great colors and sharpness, well done.