Green winged Macaw.

[Nautifish]

This is my baby grl Autum. I just tryed taking some shots of her but am having a hard time with the lighting. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.

 

[tirediron]

She's purty!!! I love macaws. Lighting animals is tough; I generally prefer hot lights rather than strobes if natural light isn't an option, because I find that the 'popping' of the strobe tends to spook a lot of animals, especially birds.

Ideally I would suggest shooting outside on a bright, but overcast day, and use a polarizing filter to enhance her colours. If she's clipped and you have a safe area, somewhere outside on a bush or tree-limb to make something more natural looking.

Consider the use of reflectors, even large pieces of white card to supplement light in the shadow areas.

 

[Negative ISO]

To avoid having to fight with shadows behind your subject, you could try shooting with a very shallow DOF, with your subject several feet in front of any mellow background. The low DOF will bokeh everything in the back and you have no shadows to fight. Sometimes finding the right background can be a challenge for me. My first thought was to go for something green (Trees, bushes?) but maybe blue would be better....?

 

[Nautifish]

Thank you.... unfortunatley she is going through a Molt right now so can not take her outside and with winter coming she is only clipped in the spring. I do have another shot of both her and my U-too will see if i can find it. It was taken with my old Canon a few yr's back.
Autum is pretty patient with me and the camera as are my other birds so am lucky they're.:thumbup:

Pumpkin my U-TOO

 

[Foxwolfe]

Very awesome looking birds!

 

[Phranquey]

To avoid having to fight with shadows behind your subject, you could try shooting with a very shallow DOF, with your subject several feet in front of any mellow background.

:thumbup:

Move your subject farther away from your background so you are not fighting that harsh shadow, move your self away from the subject and bounce the flash, and open up the f/stop for blurred background...

In this one, you can see the upward pointed (bounced) flash in his eye. shot @ f/4.

Or... leave a lot of room behind, and the background will be blacked out. Shot @ f/8

 

[Nautifish]

Thank you everyone.....I am going to give this another shot over the next few days.

Phranquey beautiful shots of ur B&G AND AG....Very beautiful....I want too try and catch those same vivid colors with Autum.