Pierre Williot  

Tree Swallow by Pierre Williot

April 2025 - Tree Swallow

About the Image(s)

I was observing Tree Swallows getting ready for the nesting season when I saw this one standing briefly on a nesting box. As I was using a monopod, I felt that I could increase my f/stop and bringing down the shutter to 1/100th second (Essentially 8 stops of stabilization when combining the lens and camera body stabilization).

For the first time photographing these beautiful birds with their iridescent heads, I was able to capture the black puff of hair located just in front of their eyes (seeing on the left side)!

Here I used my Canon EOS R7 with a Canon RF 200-800mm lens (mounted on a light monopod).

The settings for this single image were as follows: ISO 800, 1/100 sec, f/14, ISO 800, EV 1, 800 mm (1,280 mm full frame equivalent). Slight cropping and global light adjustments were performed using ON1 Photo Raw 2025.

5 comments posted

Murphy Hektner   Murphy Hektner
Hi Pierre: Probably the best in close picture I have seen of a Tree Swallow and very well presented.
Technically perfect with a complimentary background color.

It is interesting to me you could shoot off a monopod at 800mm at 1/100 second with 8 stops of stabilization and obtain this sharp of an image.

You do not mention lighting conditions. The lighting is very soft, no harsh shadows at all, I would venture a guess you had outdoor cloudy lighting, or perhaps a sunny day and the picture photographed in the shade.

KUDOS on a fine bird picture.

  Posted: 04/07/2025 00:01:45
Xiao Cai   Xiao Cai
Hi Pierre, A beautiful bird image! It is difficult to shoot swallows well because they fly very fast, almost nonstop.

I think the image is soft-focused, and not sharp enough; the bird body feather lacks texture and details. It needs increasing contrast. In Adobe Lightroom, there are some features that can increase texture and details.

Now I mainly shoot small birds, and my camera settings are: exposure 1/2500 sec at f8, Auto ISO at maximum 10000, my lens 500mm. I hope it will give you some reference about bird shooting.

Thanks for sharing!   Posted: 04/13/2025 17:15:39
Charles Ginsburgh   Charles Ginsburgh
What a clean clear portrait image of this swallow. Lots of interesting detail and color against a clean backdrop. The detail of the bird is nicely displayed. I do find that the eyes are shadowed a bit and here the native detail could be brought out a bit in post processing. I respectfully disagree with Xiao in that to me the image is as sharp as it needs to be, although one could bring of a bit more detail in the breast feathers and in the colored head feathers (with micro contrast rather than sharpening). Finally, I would consider darkening slightly the wood and post structures at the bottom of the images, to highlight your subject a bit more. I have included a version with these suggestions to illustrate my thoughts.   Posted: 04/14/2025 18:02:15
Comment Image
Pierre Williot   Pierre Williot
Thank you all for these comments and suggestions.
Yes, it was a cloudy day, providing me with a natural light diffusion. Furthermore, is was early in the morning as I do not like the harsh shadows that are present in the middle of the day (especially on a very sunny day!)   Posted: 04/14/2025 21:30:01
Alane Shoemaker   Alane Shoemaker
Pierre, your image of the tree swallow is excellent! I do like Charlie's tweaking.   Posted: 04/15/2025 21:55:25

 

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