Golden-crowned sparrow

[Diane Miller]

Playing with the 7DII, but it has been cloudy the last few days and I haven't gotten below IO 1600. Experimenting with handholding with the 300mm f/2.8. ISO 1600, 1/400 at f/4.5. Wish the OOF piece of rosemary hadn't overlapped the bird. I could probably patch it but easier to try for more -- they like to hang out here. In addition to the feeders I often scatter seed near these bushes, so they come running when they see me. Most days it's too sunny to give good shots here. Maybe the winter light will give me some different shots than the usual perches.

This is 40% of the original frame. Very basic LR adjustments -- almost nothing needed. To PS for slight cloning to the BG in a few spots and NR with Dfine, globally. No sharpening beyond the LR default, and exported from LR with the Standard sharpening. If it looks crunchy, blame the lens. :S3:

I should remove the three water droplets on the tail -- there was a light rain.

[Jonathan Ashton]

It is well focused but I think the details are good, however the narrow DOF hasn't really done you much favour.

[Diane Miller]

The DOF was a tradeoff in very low light, while experimenting with handholding. In this setting I need some mobility to get the best angles on the birds, and still getting familiar with the limits of the 7D2.

The face is sharper than it looks here -- maybe a case where I need some selective sharpening of the JPEG.

[Karl Egressy]

Nice pose, perch and background, Diane. Seen only once when it was a really hot bird here in Ontario.

[Diane Miller]

I struggle to get a JPEG to represent fine detail. Probably just a scaling issue, though. Here's a 100% of the head -- this detail doesn't come through in the OP. You can see the noise is breaking up some detail, but for the 7D2 at ISO 1600, I'm reasonably pleased with it. Brighter light will obviously be better -- this was quite cloudy.