Finally, an environemtal portrait

[Diane Miller]

I've had a lack or luck (or persistence) in my brief time as a bird hunter. Finally got a lens on a sparrow in a reasonably pleasing setting. Frustrating -- joggers and loud chatterers can blast by on a trail and the birds ignore them. I stop and point a camera at them (trying to pretend I'm looking the other way) and they get paranoid.

No chance here to move and get the branch off the bird -- it flew. I was lucky to get this much.

Canon 5D Mk III, 600mm II, 1.4X. Big Gitzo, Wimberley II. ISO 800, 1/640, f/14, because I had just been shooting 2 geese and trying to maximize focus on the back one. Didn't take time to change the setting. When I did, the bird flew. But thanks to the wonderful pinpoint AF on that body I was able to focus right on the bird's face. (AI Focus, one point selected.) Only a slight crop from FF. Slight adjustments in LR, went to PS to remove a few very small distracting OOF branches, and did a slight amount of Detail Extractor to help out the shadows.

[Diane Miller]

Hmmm -- whites on the throat look a little hot here -- thought I had fixed them in LR -- will revisit. Shouldn't be out of a fixable range.

[Shawn Zierman]

It's a nice image of the song sparrow. I like the size of the perch in relation to the bird. The lighting is pleasing, though I prefer direct frontlight vs slightly off angle light, in a scenario like this. Background control/variation is excellent....I usually ignore joggers and talkers too, but if someone points a 600mm lens at me, I get pretty paranoid as well :)

[Marina Scarr]

Your bird is nice and sharp and I like the look back pose. Exposure on neck looks good to me. What I find problematic about this image is the branch in front of the sparrow b/c of the way it cuts through the bird and distracts.

[Diane Miller]

I agree about the branch but didn't have a choice. When I tried to move, so did the bird. Will get better shots eventually, I'm sure.

[Dennis Zaebst]

Lovely shot Dianne - great OOF BG and perch and great look-back pose. I am a fan of photographs of wild animals (including birds) showing their natural habitat. I suppose in a perfect world there would be no branches in the way, but we don't, so the branch seems natural to me; i.e. that's the way we normally see them. This is nice as is, but I wonder if a vertical crop might be an alternative framing possibility? Just a thought and well done overall.

[Diane Miller]

Thanks for the complements. But a vertical crop would loose the OOF grass heads that balance the bird and provide context. Without them, I probably wouldn't have shot it.

I cropped just slightly, but was careful to let the grass heads end far enough away from the edge of the frame. Clean edges are very important when possible.