The rare unicorn grackle

[Tom Barry]

Actually, this grackle had a twig stuck in its feathers on the right wing. It fell out when he flew away, but for one brief, shining moment, he was a unicorn:
IMG_3053 by tombarry975, on Flickr

[Geoff F]

An interesting scene well photographed. Blacks can be as difficult as whites when it comes to exposure settings but you have nicely managed this exposure.

[Tom Barry]

Thanks for the kind words, Geoff.

[mugge]

Difficult shot with all the highlight behind the bird. Did you use spot metering? I recon it's a unicorn alright.
Cheers Ole

[Tom Barry]

Difficult shot with all the highlight behind the bird. Did you use spot metering? I recon it's a unicorn alright.
Cheers Ole

Thanks, Ole. No, I used evaluative, with my usual -1/3rd stop underexposure. The light was overcast. Had I used spot metering, I would have decreased exposure to -1 stop to keep from overexposing the bird. Since I can't know the algorithm Canon uses for its evaluative metering, my experience tells me I should use center-weighted averaging, which I find more predictable, but evaluative worked well this time. The 70D is still new to me and I'm exploring its capabilities. I have read that beginning with the 7D, Canon has made evaluative metering more sophisticated, giving more weight to in-focus objects and that may be why it worked so well for this shot. My most-used Canon is the 40D, and its evaluative metering sometimes lets me down.