Song Sparrow

[Bill Dix]

I'm an eternal optimist, so I check out every sparrow that twitches in the bushes, hoping it will be a Vesper, Lincoln's, Clay-colored, or other semi-rarity. The vast majority of the time it is one of these ubiquitous guys. Shot yesterday at a spot not far from my house. Full-frame. I also tried a crop version, which is OK, but I thought this one, relatively small in the frame and backed up by some nice fall colors, would suit the theme.

D500, Sigma 150-600C @ 600mm, ISO 2500, 1/1000s @ f/7.1 manual.

[annmpacheco]

Hi Bill, very nice frame, looks lovely against the colored BG and an interesting perch as well. I also like the fanned stacked tail! I have a dozen or so white throated sparrows already!

[Jonathan Ashton]

Nice shot Bill, if you still have the full size TIFF I would suggest a couple of brushes at low opacity of the Sharpen tool - especially around the cheek and neck, before you resize and sharpen for web.

[John Mack]

Nice you caught this sparrow on top of the perch. Really like the colors in the background here. Fits the theme well.

[dankearl]

The BG is really nice, I wish the bird was a bit higher in the frame.

[Brian Sump]

Overall, I like the frame Bill. The bkg colors make this one for me and even love the fly in the LHS.

Bird looks sharp to me and the perch, although dead, is more interesting than just a stick.

Great dof on the subject and I appreciate taking a shot at small in frame here.

[Bill Dix]

Thank you all.

Dan, I agree it would be better if just a tad higher in the frame. Actually I have a frame with him a little higher but he is looking the other way. If I thought it worth the time I suppose I could splice in a sliver of the bottom of the other frame into this one.

Jonathan, I never do any sharpening to the file before sizing for final output (other than a bit of sharpening that happens in NR). But your comment got me thinking about alternate work flow possibilities, since I understand that a lot of folks do two rounds of sharpening. I didn't exactly follow your selective sharpening suggestion in this RP, but out of curiosity I did sharpen the entire subject with Topaz Sharpen AI at about 40% of their Auto suggestion, in the full size TIFF. Then I resized to 1600px and sharpened that subject to taste, with some slight additional Topaz (erasing a few portions that looked over-sharp). I suppose it is slightly sharper. WDYT?