Wednesday, 6 December 2017

Using montaged images to display bird behaviour

It was another very grey day here in Cornwall which didn't really help the theme for today's  blog which was to produce close sequences of birds in flight to compile as a montage to show details of movement that are not demonstrated in single stills images,  Due to the light levels all of today's images were taken on ISO 6400 which the Nikon D5 copes with very well,   Maximum apertures of F4 to F 6.7 were used to gain as much light as possible through a 500mm lens both with and without tele-converters fitted,  These settings allowed for shutter speeds of between 1/800th and 1600th Sec depending on converters used so that speed would freeze the movement of the birds in flight,  I spent around five hours this morning working on two sequences of images and was pleased with the final montage of a landing Great Spotted Woodpecker posted below,


So what is wrong with sticking with traditional individual well composed portrait images of any given subject such as the three Chaffinch posted below, Absolutely Nothing !!  and it is the norm in most peoples photography but if you are taking multiple images at the rate of up to10 or 12 frames a second to achieve those flight shots then why not consider merging a few to gain that feeling of movement and behaviour that as opposed to a fleeting moment in film or video can be appreciated within one single finished montage for as long as the image holds your interest,





The above Montage has been produced from the previous three single stills images which I was happy with in their own right and I love the way that all of the background colours are echoed within the birds plumage but I enjoy taking images in a manner which allows for this sort of Photoshop creativity to re-produce that feeling of movement in my subject

I would be pleased to receive viewers comments with regards to working in this manner  !!

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