In the Field

Varied Thrush - Rare Winter Visitor. Findlay Creek, BC, Canada. January 2, 2005.

Varied Thrushes are secretive, forest-dwelling birds that bear a stong resemblance to American Robins. Each spring they migrate through our area and normally stop over for a week or so, especially if they happen to hit a late season storm. This Varied Thrush was unique in that it showed up mid way through the winter of 2004-2005. I noticed it a day or two after Christmas and continued to see the bird for the following two weeks.

The toughest photographic challenge in capturing a quality image of this bird was simply getting close enough to it! The bird proved to be very wary and had a habit of hiding among the boughs of a Douglas Fir tree. To get close enough I chose my longest telephoto lens (a 200-400 mm zoom) and combined it with a 1.4x teleconverter - something I rarely do. Between the teleconverter and the digital magnification of my DX format camera, I ended up shooting this image with the equivalent of an 840 mm lens (on a 35 mm SLR)!

Many photographers, including many acclaimed wildlife photographers, regularly use teleconverters to extend the reach of their lenses. Quality teleconverters are a relatively low-cost means of increasing the focal length of your lenses, and can, of course, be used with different lenses. Personally, I've not had good luck with teleconverters and have only rarely been satisfied with the results. So...they rarely end up in my camera bag. I have read (in several places) that they should NEVER be used with zoom lenses - only with quality fixed focal length (i.e., prime) lenses. Regardless, if you're happy with the results you get with teleconverters, by all means use them!

Behind the Camera

Varied Thrush - Rare Winter Visitor. Findlay Creek, BC, Canada. January 2, 2005.

Digital Capture; Compressed RAW (NEF) format; ISO 200.

Nikon D2H with Nikon 200-400 mm f/4G ED-IF AF-S VR lens @ 400 mm with Nikon TC-14E 11 1.4x teleconverter (840 mm equivalent with digital conversion factor) supported on Gitzo G2220 tripod with Manfrotto 322RC2 Heavy Duty Grip Ball Head.

1/160s @ f5.6; -0.3 stop exposure compensation from matrix-metered exposure setting.

At the Computer

Varied Thrush - Rare Winter Visitor. Findlay Creek, BC, Canada. January 2, 2005.

RAW Conversion, including first-pass sharpening, exposure compensation, and tone curve adjustment, using Phase One's C1 Pro. Multiple RAW conversions (2 at different exposure settings) to extend dynamic range of captured image, in this case primarily to restore shadow detail on shoulder and flank of bird.

All further digital correction on 16-bit TIFF file using Adobe's Photoshop CS, including compositing and masking of various exposure versions, selective saturation enhancement, selective Gaussian blur, and selective sharpening for web output.

Conservation

Varied Thrush - Rare Winter Visitor. Findlay Creek, BC, Canada. January 2, 2005.

Ten percent of the revenue generated by this image will be donated to Wildsight.

Information to follow.