Pied Cuckoo

[Dr. Kalpamoi Kakati]

A very rare bird. I had seen this 2-3 times before during this monsoon,but this is the only time I had the camera with me.Had to shoot it against the Sun.
Location-Gwalior
1/320
f7.1
ISO 400
250mm

[Nitin Choudhary]

any particular reason for shooting it with f/7.1 and not on f5.6??

[Sabyasachi Patra]

In a backlit situation it is tough to shoot a black bird. In this case, you can go and do a silhouette as well. Also, when shooting against the light, you need to give a positive exposure compensation.

When you are shooting against the sky, you need to pull the black point during processing.

Narrowing the aperture from f5.6 to f71. ie. by 2/3rd stops, also increases the depth of field. There is no standard rule as to which aperture has to be used. If you want to show more of areas in focus, then better to use a narrow aperture. Ofcourse, you have to ensure that that you have a high enough shutter speed to get the image sharp.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Mrudul Godbole]

The composition is nice. The yellow leaves look nice in the light. You did nicely in the given conditions. Would have liked a rectagular framing than a square one. Thanks for sharing.

[Bibhav Behera]

I like the light. The perch looks nice as well. I might be tempted to pull the black point a little bit. A rectangular crop in my opinion would have been better. Thanks for sharing.
Definitely a beautiful bird to see in the monsoons.

[Abhishek Jamalabad]

NIce shot. Agree about the rectangular framing. I would try playing around with the levels on this one.
TFS

[Nitin Choudhary]

Thank you for info...
Black point here refers to the black body of the bird?
and I bit more exposure wouldn't have burnt out the white parts from neck to belly?