![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/brewers-blackbird-8040-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"brewers-blackbird-8040-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\nMy first time photographing a male of\u00a0this species in flight. I had to cheat a little to get it the way I want it\u00a0but I finally got the photo.<\/p>\n
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1\/5000, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n I’ll say\u00a0at the get-go that the\u00a0“cheating” involved adding canvas. I didn’t have enough canvas, particularly on the right, so I added some for a more pleasing composition. I don’t like to do it so I don’t very often but I was tempted more than usual this time because it didn’t involve anything in the featureless background. If there had been any elements back there (leaves, an obvious horizon etc.) I almost certainly\u00a0wouldn’t have done it.<\/p>\n I know, I’m\u00a0rationalizing…<\/p>\n I photographed him two days ago at Glover Pond in Farmington. He’d been preening on a fencepost and I caught him soon after he lifted off. The background may look like sky but most of it is the smooth surface of the pond.<\/p>\n I’ve tried sporadically\u00a0for years to photograph males of this species in flight and I’ve actually succeeded a few times but their color is so densely black it’s\u00a0almost like trying to photograph a black hole so I\u00a0always\u00a0had a poor exposure on the bird and deleted the image. For that reason I call the males of this species\u00a0‘photon suckers’.\u00a0Even if you do get a decent exposure on the bird\u00a0the background is often blown out (too bright). But this time it worked out\u00a0pretty well except for the side of the rump where I don’t have much detail at all.<\/p>\n I realize this photo won’t be everyone’s cup of feathers but for me it’s an accomplishment and I was happy to get it.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n PS – I noticed a small but interesting detail. The catch light is almost smack dab in the middle of the small black pupil surrounded by the yellow iris. That produced three nearly\u00a0concentric circles which doesn’t happen very often. I don’t see that as either good or bad, it just is. We probably wouldn’t even notice the catch light if it had\u00a0been elsewhere on the eye but an obvious catch light isn’t so important when the eye is bright like this. A dark or black eye would be another matter.<\/em><\/p>\n The position of the catch light on the\u00a0eye is also an indicator of where the sun was in the sky when I took the photo (yes, I like to get up early…)\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My first time photographing a male of this species in flight. I had to cheat a little to get it the way I want it but I finally got the photo.<\/p>\n