Pied Bushchat ( Female )

[Pramod Viswanath]

Made this image in the evening light.

Canon 30D, Canon 300 F2.8 L IS USM + Canon 2x, F8, ISO 125, 1/80s, Bean bag ( shot from car ), 95% of full frame.

Would love to know your thoughts..

Thanks in advance..

[Fabs Forns]

Beautiful warm light and clean background. The head could be turned a little more, but I like the catch light showing. This could have been a vertical allowing more room at the bottom, where it is a bit tight.
Thanks for sharing it!

[Daniel Cadieux]

I'm interested to know why you left your ISO at 125 with such low shutter speed. There is something about the feather detail that bugs me, (especially behind the head and along the back)? Maybe just the post processing? Agree about head angle. Neat bird, the color combined with the light looks quite rich.

[Pramod Viswanath]

Daniel, the light was fast fading and I was in a hurry to make a image in golden light and totally forgot about the ISO Setting untill I pressed the shutter. Since I was shooting with the help of the bean bag, I was confident of getting a sharper image.

When you say - "There is something about the feather detail...." What exactly you mean?

[Daniel Cadieux]

Daniel, the light was fast fading and I was in a hurry to make a image in golden light and totally forgot about the ISO Setting untill I pressed the shutter. Since I was shooting with the help of the bean bag, I was confident of getting a sharper image.

When you say - "There is something about the feather detail...." What exactly you mean?

It seems like the feathers lack the fine detail expected especially at 95% full-frame. Maybe this species' feathers are coarser than most? If so, then fine. Perhaps your sharpening method gave it this look. If so I'm just interested to know what your workflow is sharpening-wise.

[Pramod Viswanath]

Indeed you are right. Tail feathers are like that and the light makes the image look like that.

Regarding sharpening, I had issues and Artie suggested me to do it in a different way. Since then I have been following that. I do the sharpening as the last step. First round Unsharp mask @ 200, 0.3, 1 , after resize 125, 0.2, 0.

[Arthur Morris]

Great bird, lovely perch, lovely light, killer BKGR, but as always an improper head angle negates all of that... See the Head Angle Police thread in Eager to Learn (and about half of my 3,700 or so posts. Learning to watch the head angle before pressing the shutter button is something that folks seem to have difficulty doing despite its huge importance to the effectiveness of an image...

[Pramod Viswanath]

Thanks a lot for that Artie. Will definitely work towards that.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Indeed you are right. Tail feathers are like that and the light makes the image look like that.

Regarding sharpening, I had issues and Artie suggested me to do it in a different way. Since then I have been following that. I do the sharpening as the last step. First round Unsharp mask @ 200, 0.3, 1 , after resize 125, 0.2, 0.

Thanks for the clarification Pramod :)