Coyote Hills, California

Nikon N90s, 400mm f3.5 + TC301 (800mm f7), Elite II 100, tripod

My friend's daughter kept saying "Take pictures of the birdies!".

-- Andrew Y. Kim (andy_roo@mit.edu), February 02, 1999

Answers

As a bird portrait photograph, this shot suffers a bit from lack of sharpness (scan/teleconverter?) and seems lacking in contrast. The space to the right of these birds seems empty to me. To a birder/naturalist, this shot captures a sense of the normal brushy habitat of white-crowned sparrows (these are immature birds) and their typical alarm behavior (they pop up off the ground into the low vegetation to scope out their surroundings) beautifully. A very pleasing photograph for me. Your friend's daughter's advice was sound.

-- Peter May (peter.may@stetson.edu), February 03, 1999.

Despite the fact that I've seen that the TC-301 results in less snappy contrast than the 400mm alone or with the TC-14B, the contrast and colors in the scan are actually quite close to what I saw that day, right around sunset, probably about 10 yards away.

As for sharpness, that's in the scan, the slide looks good under a 6x loupe and the 400mm f3.5 + TC-301 combo is quite sharp. The HP Photosmart scanner seems to have focus problems sometimes with the slides I get back from our local shop mounted in plastic Pakon holders, not sure why.

Anyways, thanks for the identification and comments, I didn't know that it was their alarm behavior, although it makes sense with a 5 year old hopping up and down :) Not sure about the right side, I think having the slightly out of focus stem on the right adds to the picture. Certainly cropping the right side makes for an awkward picture. Keep chopping wood I guess!

-- Andrew Y. Kim (andy_roo@mit.edu), February 04, 1999.

I think there's a nice symmetry in this photo that is hidden by the extra space on the right. The two birds seem to mirror each other, and a little bit of cropping would emphasize that.

-- Don Proctor (71051.1221@compuserve.com), February 05, 1999.

Andrew,

I think this is a well designed graphic image and works well in the square format you have cropped it into. The curve of the branch and the location of the two birds partly surrounding what is essentially negative space pleases my eye as does the birds' poses.

Frank

-- Frank Kolwicz (bb389@lafn.org), February 09, 1999.