![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/western-grebe-1299b-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"western-grebe-1299b-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\nI decided to post baby grebe hitchhikers this morning in the hope they will have a positive effect on my current funk. I suspect some of my readers could use a similar attitude adjustment.<\/p>\n
Each of these photos was taken at Bear River MBR on the morning of August 23, 2015. I’ve posted one of them before but the other three are new to my blog. As usual with my photos none of them are perfect but just the presence of these little guys helps me to look beyond imperfections even if I can’t ignore them altogether.<\/p>\n
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1\/2000, f\/8, 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 One of the most difficult challenges of photographing multiple birds in the same image is getting light in the eye of all of your subjects. In this photo I succeeded in getting a catch light in all three birds.<\/p>\n The other major difficulty presented by long-necked birds on water is dealing with their reflection. It can be very difficult to avoid cutting off the reflection of a long-necked bird’s head and when it happens I typically delete the photo because it looks amputated.<\/p>\n In this photo I triumphed over the catch light and amputation challenges but there always seems to be something that negates my success – in this case it’s that nearly vertical bright, wavy reflection at the left edge of the frame which I find annoying.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/2000, f\/8, 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 Here I’m especially enamored by the reflections in the water that seem to flowing into the depression in the water made by the adult grebe. I also enjoy seeing the red spot on the chick’s forehead that is most often hidden.<\/p>\n For me the major weakness of the photo is that it’s a little too tight on the birds – in other words I was too close. I also didn’t get light in the chick’s eye but I succeeded in keeping the adult’s reflection intact.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/2500, f\/8, 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 In this shot I succeeded in all major challenges although I’m always a little frustrated when I can’t shoot my subjects from a lower angle than this.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/2500, f\/8, 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 After all the bellyaching I’ve done you may have noticed immediately that in this photo I didn’t get a catch light in the hitchhiking chick. But I like the contrasting positions and poses of the youngsters and my shooting angle is a little lower which I always appreciate.<\/p>\n So there you have it, my attempt at attitude adjustment. Hitchhiking grebe chicks will take a chunk out of my funk almost every time.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I decided to post baby grebe hitchhikers this morning in the hope they will have a positive effect on my current funk. I suspect some of my readers could use a similar attitude adjustment.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/western-grebe-1741-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"western-grebe-1741-ron-dudley\\"")
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