Female Northern Cardinal
The first accumulating snow fall of the 2017/2018 winter season arrived this weekend in upstate New York. In the mid-afternoon, the birds were active and visiting the feeders. I managed to take several hundred photos with the Canon 7D Mark II and the Canon EF 100-400MM F/4.5-5.6L IS USM lens as they came and went in the snow. The birds included several male and female Northern Cardinals, Dark-Eyed Juncos, American Tree Sparrows, American Goldfinches, and an occasional Blue Jay.
The light was fairly poor because of the falling snow which resulted in most images being pushed to ISO 6400 to keep the shutter speed up because I was hand holding the EF 100-400MM. In these conditions, I typically use a single focal point with the 7D Mark II and of course work to focus on the eye while using spot exposure on the body. This requires a lot of movement of the focal point using the joystick on the camera.
The photos shown here have been post-processed in Photoshop 2018 with Luminar. Exposure and contrast has been corrected in Luminar while I apply Dodge & Burn, sharpening, and noise reduction in Photoshop layers. In some images, I have also masked out distracting background features.
Thanks for stopping by today!
American Tree Sparrow in snow
American Tree Sparrow in snow and wind
Dark-Eyed Junco in snow
Dark-Eyed Junco looking into the camera