OK, I'll let you in on it since Ann asked and her tutorial played a big role in inspiring me to light these shots up.
Basically, I shoot out of a clean window. I have an adjustable bird 'tray', which is basically 1 square foot of wood with a rim and two legs that move in and out to allow me to raise and lower my pile of cheap seed. I have a long branch about 6 feet out for them to perch on. Depending on what type of flight I'm looking for, I lower and raise that as well.
I capture the birds under the eave of my house so that no ambient light is hitting them. This photo was taken on a very cloudy day, ergo the black background that I love.
I have an B800 to the left at 1/2 and working as a slave off my SB600 to the right set on TTL on my camera. Now, I know NOTHING about lights so I'm really looking for feedback here.
200 ISO, 1/200, f11
The dove is about 3 feet away from me here just flapping his wings and trying to find a place to land as there were 4 or 5 others already gorging on the seed.
That's what seemed to work at the end of the day. I seem to learn more and more everytime I take a day to do a bird shot. Hopefully I can start coming out with more than 1 a day, but I'm not complaining.
WARNING: If you are not a patient person, do not even try this.
ETA: I have a black sheet hanging from the inside of my window with a hole cut out for the lens. Simple but effective. The blue jays are SMART, I don't get them much. They drop straight down from above nowadays and are gone in 2 seconds. The cardinals are moody and sneak in from the sides but at least they stick around for a couple of shots. But the doves like to just hover sometimes like this one did for me.
You have so many fabulous images in your birds collection, but this is my fav. What a wonderful capture! Thanks for letting us in on your methodology; lucky for us you are a patient person :-)
Almost an apparition, but with substance. Love the way it is holding its talons in. And very nice of you to share the setup information! I don't have the patience, nor the birdfeeder, but one of these days I may give it a try.
PAW - great timing with the pigeon looking right at you and the wings appearing to be tucked in. You have quite an elaborate setup for this. Well done on the black background. Yes, Ann's tutorial is great. I hope to use it some day when I get more flashes and learn to use them better.
Thanks for all the info on the patience and the logistics. That goes a long way to explaining how you got such an impossibly great shot. Iconicly good - thanks.
wow is all I can say! Thanks for sharing, and for linking Ann's tutorial too! (Thanks Ann for sharing as well!) ~I'm a newby and a very amateur birder with not much equipment, so all this is very inspiring to me!
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