Eastern Towhee

We saw a bunch of Towhees on our walk this morning. These three images are of one who remained very close to where I was set up so I got some real close-up shots that didn't really need much in the way of cropping. I did end up cropping a bit to a 14x11 format in order to move the bird a little more away from center.

As always, C&C is welcomed and appreciated. Thanks for looking.

Wow, great shots. I'd love to see one of these around here.

Nice shots Ed. The head looks a little dark in the third photo.

Question - Do you set up your gear, sit, and wait for the birds to come to you, or do you walk, spot something, and quickly set up your gear?

canonloader wrote in post #3309368
Wow, great shots. I'd love to see one of these around here.

Thanks Mitch. Once again, feedback is getting hard to come by. I am on my way out for this morning's exploration. Can wait to see what the day brings.

stefeb wrote in post #3310280
Nice shots Ed. The head looks a little dark in the third photo.

Question - Do you set up your gear, sit, and wait for the birds to come to you, or do you walk, spot something, and quickly set up your gear?

Thanks Steve. While I had the flash and BB all set up, light seemed good enough that I didn't need to use it. However, in that third shot a shadow from a branch (I think) crossed the birds face making it look a bit darker than the first two. It becomes all the more obvious when you compare the eyes. I may look through some of the other images later to see if there are others I want to post here.

And I do both. Sometimes I walk and sometimes I wait. Yesterday was a walking day up at Jacobsburg (I probably toted the camera/tripod set-up at least 4 miles) and I photographed Towhees in several different locations. These images are from the location where I got the closest. I must say that I often find the activity of quickly setting up gear tends to spook off the bird I want to photograph. I can stand there for a minute with the tripod over my shoulder and no problem but as soon as I move it, off they go.

Steve,

I don't know if you will catch this follow-up or not.

I gave some more thought to your question while I was wandering around the Monocacy this morning. Given a choice, I would really prefer to set up and wait for the birds. That requires a couple things not the least of which is the unbridled confidence that if I wait, the birds will come. I had that confidence a month or so ago. But when the birds didn't come for a couple of consecutive evenings out, that confidence was shaken and I started moving about more.

All in all, I think it is much more difficult to catch the shots when moving about - particularly when using a tripod, etc. As I said, and I saw it again today, I could stop with the tripod on my shoulder and look at the bird and usually it stays. As soon as I lower the tripod from my shoulder, the bird often takes flight. It just happens. I missed a couple of warblers and thrushes that way today. On the other hand, if you are shooting handheld, it may not be as big of a problem. I say that knowing that before becoming wedded to the tripod, I found the act of lifting the camera and big white lens was sometimes enough to send the bird scurrying away.

Then there is the wild card in all this. Often my wife, who is more the birder in the family, accompanies me on my forays and she gets antsy when I hang in one place to long. Consequently I am much more likely to move around when she is with me which is probably 3 out of 4 times.

Hope this helps or at least doesn't add to the confusion!

Even when the light looks good and the sky is blue you need to bump up your exposure when shooting against the bare sky, especially dark birds (or use of fill can do to). Beautiful bird that I have yet to see...

dancad wrote in post #3314618
Even when the light looks good and the sky is blue you need to bump up your exposure when shooting against the bare sky, especially dark birds (or use of fill can do to). Beautiful bird that I have yet to see...

Thanks Dan. I will keep that in mind.

However, let's see if I get this right, if I bump up the exposure compensation I will be overexposing slightly which will make the image lighter and brighter. I actually darkened the bird a bit in PP while brighening the background a tad using Levels. I darkened the bird because I felt it better represented what I felt I saw out there in the field while shooting the images. The head was blacker and the sides were redder. If I bumped up EC (say +2/3), I would lose some of that color.

Right? Or am I confusing myself again?

Well done Ed, especially the second shot. I've never seen a Towhee before (however I say this about most birds being new to birding ) BTW both tunnels were open and it was smooth sailing through Lehigh Valley last night! You live in a beautiful area.

If you shoot in RAW, none of that matters. Within reason. You can fix anything easily up to +/- 1 EV. But, you can introduce noise when you go up in brightness or exposure. Going down makes a much better picture. But to get the shaded side of the bird to be bright enough, you have to over expose to start with, or use fill flash, or get into a lot of post processing. I haven't found any way around it.

What they need to do is make a camera that will shoot in layers.

sugarzebra wrote in post #3315293
Well done Ed, especially the second shot. I've never seen a Towhee before (however I say this about most birds being new to birding ) BTW both tunnels were open and it was smooth sailing through Lehigh Valley last night! You live in a beautiful area.

Thanks Scott. Glad to hear you got through the tunnels with no problems. Actually we were down in Philly yesterday visiting our daughter and son-in-law.

canonloader wrote in post #3315307
If you shoot in RAW, none of that matters. Within reason. You can fix anything easily up to +/- 1 EV. But, you can introduce noise when you go up in brightness or exposure. Going down makes a much better picture. But to get the shaded side of the bird to be bright enough, you have to over expose to start with, or use fill flash, or get into a lot of post processing. I haven't found any way around it.

What they need to do is make a camera that will shoot in layers.

Thanks Mitch. You know I keep thinking about shooting in RAW. I have the RAW converter that Canon supplied (Digital Photo Professional) loaded on both computers. But for some reason when I get out in the field, I just keep shooting in JPEG. What I have to do is transition by shooting in RAW + JPEG for a little while.