Townsend's Warbler

[Bill Dix]

When I ventured to California a few weeks ago, I had a list of life birds I hoped to photograph. This was one. Unfortunately, he was flitting around on the sunlit edge of a dark Eucalyptus grove, in a clutter of bright twigs. I did a fair amount of PP work to remove the twigs, and the drapery-like BG is what was left. So it's not a perfect representation of the bird in his habitat as I saw him, but I rather liked the result. C&C appreciated.

D7000, 700mm, ISO 1000, 1/1000s @ f/6.6 manual.

[Karl Egressy]

The PP result is great, Bill. Congratulations on your lifer. Very nice image, love the pose and the mostly yellow bird pops against the dark background.

[Randy Stout]

Bill;

Neat bg, nice cleanup job, alert pose.

Some of the yellows have lost some detail, esp in the ring on throat and cheek area.

Congrats on a lifer!

Randy

[Shawn Zierman]

I enjoy the unique background on this fine warbler image. A warbler species that is rarely featured in this forum too, so it's nice to see. Your PS work, as always, is very good, but mostly I appreciate that you always thouroughly disclose what you do. I agree with Randy regarding the brightest yellows on the facial area. I wonder if toning those areas down selectively would work out well or just end up looking a bit duller....Sweet eye level image of the species. If you did not use audio as an attractant, and I assume you did not since I don't see it disclosed, this is all the more impressive.

[Bill Dix]

Randy and Shawn, you're quite right about the yellow. I had thought it was in the jpeg conversion, but I went back and looked at my master TIFF file, and it was quite evident; I just missed it. I've gone back to the RAW, made a 1/2 stop exposure correction, and copied a layer of just the yellow above and below the eye into the master file. (I also got rid of a bright spot on the perch by the throat that had been nagging at me. ) Here it is; it does make a difference, I think. Thanks for pointing it out.

And Shawn, no audio used here. Interestingly, I did hear a few of them singing. Their song is very reminiscent of the Black-throated Green that I am very familiar with. Not surprising, I suppose, since they are close cousins.

[Satish Ranadive]

Bill Sir,
Wonderful image of beautiful Warbler.( It is very difficult to photograph them because of their habitat). Bird really pops up against dark BG. Re post looks great.
Very nice PP work. Love the frame.

Regards,
Satish.

[Bill Dix]

Thank you, Satish.