European Starling Bringing Back Some Food

[Alex Hoover]

187264

I recently bought a used D500 so I thought I would take it out to Boundary Bay, British Columbia. Considering my last body was a D3300, this is definitely an upgrade! I came across a starling nest right off the main trail and watched both the parents make countless trips back and forth. This time the baby starling was especially eager and came into the light. It was nice to get out in the sun again after so much rain.

D500 + Nikon 200-500mm f/5.6

Taken at 230mm f/5.6 1/2000 ISO 1100

[Daniel Cadieux]

Congrats on the new camera body! It's always fun to take new toys out for a spin:S3:. A fun time of year with nesting birds too. It's nice to see a natural-ish nest (utility pole?) with cavity nesters. Fun interaction, and the timing of the food exchange is just right. A bit noisier than I would like, and the fine detail not quite there. If that spot allows it, now that the chicks are showing, you could move well to your right, get sun angle lined up up to the subjects, and create neat parallel shots with a good clean BG for subject separation. Anyhow, these types of nest sites offer tons of good opportunities!

[John Mack]

The interaction is nice. Framing is right on. Nice view of the adult and chick. Enjoy using that new body.

[Brian Sump]

Alex, great action here and congrats on the D500. I migrated to this body from a D3500 and still have it today. I remember the difference in quality after making the shift and it made a huge impact on my shots!

As Daniel said, the image is a bit soft and grainy and feels a bit washed out. I would suggest increasing some saturation here and playing with curves adjustment (Google "S curve"). A good post processing technique could help this one immensely I think.

If not already, you might familiarize yourself with Topaz Denoise. Glad to have ya here!

[arash_hazeghi]

Dan nailed it. yup pretty noisy and soft just like the other one

before going into processing and spending a lot of time, you need to figure out if the RAW is good or not. if the RAW is bad no amount of processing in the world can save it. If the RAW is good you can start getting into processing details