FEMALE WHEATEAR

[christopher galeski]

Taken this morning in an old disused quarry,lighting a bit over cast,cannon 500mm IS L F4.tripod,700mm FL,cropped,sharpened,denoised in BG,,iso800,F8,1/60s,comments good or bad,thanks.

[Simon Wantling]

Hi Chris, Glad to see someone is managing to photograph something in this horrible UK weather. I really like the composition and the rock really adds to the image. My only comment if its ok to say is that I find the top face of the rock a little bright so could perhaps tone that down a bit and maybe the bird is a little over sharpened for my taste. But a really nice image and certainly a bird I'd like to catch up with.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Chris I like the image I see you applied NR to the background. I keep looking at the bird, for me something not quite right, I suspect a little NR there also would help becasue the current sharpening regime you applied has mad it look a little bit too crisp.
The upper surface of the rock is very bright I would tone it down a bit if you can. Glad to see you got the feet in clear view. I haven't managed any wheatears yet but they are about.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Chris, sweet subject and I like the overall colour & tones.

Would agree on toning some key areas down, likewise the sharpening, however more importantly there is a line that runs down about two inches in from the RHS. Note sure if you have added BKG, but easily corrected. If you have the image area, have you tried to level the stone so the subject is not tilting back? BTW check your steps for saving for web, it has an untagged profile and on screen looks a bit warm, it tones back nicely once it has the full settings applied.

TFS
Steve

[Karl Egressy]

Nice head angle and excellent details, Chris.

[Diane Miller]

A cute little bird, with great detail.

This raises, for me, a question about the frequent comments of oversharpening. That does sometimes seem to be the case. But with this one, I don't see that, I just see very nicely captured detail. I'm wondering to what extent the monitor display creates an oversharpened look when the frequency of detail in the image is close to the pixel pitch of the monitor.

[christopher galeski]

Thanks for comments,I forgot to tone down the rock,well spotted Steve the line,I cloned abit of green color out,but how the line has appeared pass,thanks for looking and comments.

[Steve Kaluski]

Easily done Chris, no big deal and as I said, a quick fix. :w3 Just watch your sRGB setting though.

[gail bisson]

I have to agree with the comments about the over sharpening and the brightness of the rock. I like the POV and position of the bird.
I am not loving the mottled BG but that is a personal taste issue,
Gail

[Satish Ranadive]

Absolutely marvelous image. Love the pose,colors and tack sharp bird.
Beautiful composition too.

Regards,
Satish.

[Tim King]

I'm loving the pose and color layout here. Sharpness, BG and perch are perfect, although I would consider toning down the top part of the rock. Fine job.

[Daniel Cadieux]

I like the inquisitive pose to this beautiful individual, and the perch is reall neat (although the top surface is bright for my liking). Good comp, colours. The BG is kinda odd, I realize it may not be the case, but some areas look like large clone stamp spots.

Diane: As for sharpening, yes different monitors display that differently...most evident from CRTs to LCDs. Most of my early images looked fine on CRTs...then when I switched to LCD I was dismayed to see most of them clearly oversharpened.

[Diane Miller]

I assume everyone is using flat screen displays today, although there is some variation in the type of screens. Just curious because some comments I've seen about oversharpening look OK to me -- they just look like sharp focus. But if I put on reading glasses and really peer closely I'm seeing the dot pitch of the monitor interacting with the detail frequency. That wouldn't show in a print, although I realize the game here is screen appearance.

Just an idle thought. Back to more important things now!

[christopher galeski]

thanks again for looking,Daniel,the BG is quarry rock,which has been worked,as you can see on the perch,the straight edge,the quarry as not been worked for years,but the rock is covered in grey blotches of all shapes and sizes its some sort of growth.thanks again.