![\"american-kestrel-7758\"](\"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/american-kestrel-7758.jpg\" "\\"american-kestrel-7758\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nCatch lights are highly desirable, to the point that many avian photographers simply delete virtually all photos that don’t have them (a painful process, to be sure).\u00a0\u00a0 Others resort to artificially cloning them into the eye when they don’t appear naturally – a practice that I find distasteful, even dishonest for a nature photographer (that said, I’m not adverse to running an extra round of sharpening or a Levels adjustment\u00a0to enhance a subtle catch light that already exists).<\/p>\n
Natural catch lights that are a direct reflection of\u00a0 the sun will appear in the upper half of the eye, usually from the 10 o’clock\u00a0 to the 2 o’clock position, depending on the angle and position\u00a0of the sun behind the photographer.\u00a0\u00a0If the sun is behind the\u00a0bird (back light) or too high in the sky,\u00a0that kind of catch light will not\u00a0be produced.<\/p>\n
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Without “light in the eye”, viewers perceive\u00a0the eye to be lifeless, “dead” or even evil.\u00a0 For this reason,\u00a0cinematographers often deliberately eliminate catch lights on “the bad guys” in movies and television.\u00a0\u00a0 There is almost no difference between the two American Kestrel images above except for the slight head turn in the first shot that allows light from the sun to be reflected as a catch light.\u00a0\u00a0 Virtually all viewers would much prefer the first image.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n I’ll provide two more examples of the value of a catch light to the\u00a0aesthetics of an image.\u00a0\u00a0 In this shot there is no catch light because the sun is too far to the viewer’s right.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n But with just a slight turn of the bird’s head the catch light is there.\u00a0 Here it is in the 1 o’clock position, indicating that the sun is over my (the photographer) right shoulder and\u00a0that it’s about mid-morning with the sun fairly high in the sky.\u00a0 The lower the sun the closer to the\u00a0vertical center of the eye the catch light will be.\u00a0\u00a0 It will not normally\u00a0appear in the bottom half of the eye of a perched bird\u00a0because the sun disappears below the horizon.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n One more example from some shots I took yesterday.\u00a0\u00a0 Here the eye of the Prairie Falcon appears lifeless.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n But with just a slight turn of the head the light appears in the eye and the bird simply seems more “alive”.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n At times,\u00a0conditions will produce two or more catch lights, especially when\u00a0the subject is in or near water.\u00a0 It’s very common to have extra catch lights caused by the reflection of the sun off of the water’s surface.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The catch light\u00a0 at the top of the eye of this Snowy\u00a0Egret is a direct reflection of the sun while the smaller one below it is from the sun being reflected off of the water.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Here’s a female Cinnamon Teal with two catch lights – the larger one on top from the sun and the lower one reflected off the water surface.\u00a0 From the position of the larger one it can be surmised that the photo was taken with the sun low in the sky.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n If the water surface has ripples, multiple catch lights can be produced.\u00a0 This submerging Pied-billed Grebe shows three – the top one directly from the sun and the bottom two from ripples in the water.<\/p>\n Some photographers will\u00a0occasionally use\u00a0artificial flash\u00a0that will also produce a catch light.\u00a0 Well known bird photographer Bob Steele once photographed a Wood Duck with fill flash in sunlight that had seven<\/em> catch lights!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Occasionally I’ll get an extra catch light that I can’t explain.\u00a0 This Prairie Falcon somehow got two that were nearly identical. \u00a0 The only water behind me was hidden from the bird by an elevated road and both lights are at the same level in the eye anyway so I can’t quite figure it out.\u00a0 There must have been something behind me or to either side\u00a0that was\u00a0very bright.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Not all light in the eye is a pinpoint catch light.\u00a0 If what is being reflected is large, as compared to the relatively “small” sun, the reflection can be large\u00a0and\u00a0usually less bright.\u00a0 A bright sky, with the sun hidden by thin clouds, can often produce this kind of reflection where\u00a0most of the upper half of the eye has a diffuse “catch light”.\u00a0 And if there’s\u00a0snow on the\u00a0ground it can cover much of the bottom half of the eye also.<\/p>\n This American Kestrel has what I call a linear catch light.\u00a0 This image was taken on a day with high, thin clouds (the background is mountains, not sky).\u00a0 What we see in the eye is the reflection of the bright horizon behind me with the top of the eye being shaded by the kestrel’s “eyebrow” feathers.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n At times, actual objects can be seen in the reflections.\u00a0 This Great Horned Owl is high in a barn and I’m photographing it from my bright red pickup that can be seen in the bird’s left eye.\u00a0 If you’re close enough to the bird when you take the photo it’s not unusual at all to be able to see yourself in the reflection.\u00a0 This phenomenon is sometimes used as a plot point in movies and television where computer magnification of a catch light in a photograph is used to obtain information about the surroundings of the person being photographed – often to aid in solving a crime.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n