Female Goldfinch on Hazelnut

[Craig Markham]

File Name MK3L2791
Female Goldfinch
05/02/09 5:04:42 PM
Canon EOS-1D Mark III, EF500mm f/4L IS USM +1.4x, Gitzo 3541 XL CF, Wimberley II
Manual Exposure at 1/200, f/5.6, Partial Metering, ISO 400
580 EX II flash at -2/3
Cropped to 50% of original frame

This little lady upstaged her flashier male partner with her perfect "do" and "come hither" look.

[Tony Whitehead]

Lovely pose and exposure with flash, Craig. Looks as though the bird could stand a little more sharpening for web presentation. The vertical branch is a bit dominant and by burning it in a little you may be able to reduce this. The OOF leaves on the right and small intrusion lower left corner could be darkened and you could possibly patch out the OOF twig in the BG.

[Randy Stout]

Craig:

I think Tony hit all the important points. I think the two most important points that he made are 1)darken the main trunk a bit 2) Sharpen the bird a bit more.

I did a quick pass on adjusting the relative brightness of objects. Main trunk dimmer, with lower contrast, the right background dimmer and the right most cluster of leaves dimmer.

To my eye, it highlights the bird more. I didn't do any additional sharpening. The posted file was about 74 kb. To give the best image quality, I would try to get as close to 200kb on your posts as possible. It also makes any reposts better too!

Just an option for you.

Randy

[Judy Lynn Malloch]

Really like your repost Randy. Beautiful composition Craig and good exposure and detail. I agree with the above comments on all accounts. Many thanks for sharing Craig.

[Doug Brown]

I like the pose, but the vertical branch is dominant in the frame. I like the repost but I would minimize the visual impact of the light green area on the right. And I agree that it would benefit from some additional sharpening.

[David Thomasson]

Love the composition and color. I think the strong vertical line lends a nice balance. I do think the bird should be brought out more. Maybe simplify the background in the bargain?

http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/8079/goldfinch.jpg

[Craig Markham]

I appreciate all for your thoughts and efforts. Thank you! Before posting, I did consider and experiment on variations of many of your observations -- whether to darken the large vertical branch, remove or modify some of the OOFs. I typically prefer to include some habitat context in my images, as long as it isn't too messy and distracting. I did try a vertical crop, but I thought it took the life out of the image. BTW, I did clean up some unattractive crumbs that were on the bird's bill.

David, I do like the clean look of your repost -- you did a really nice job of cloning out non-essential OOFs while maintaining overall context and image balance. It improved the image enormously.

I thought Randy was on the right track thinking something needed to be done with the OOF leaf. However, attempting to darken it created grainy artifacts that aggravated the problem; David cloned it out effectively. For me, darkening the specular reflections in the vertical branch creates some dissonance with the illumination on the bird and theoverall image loses some vividness. I think that the catch-light of the eye and the bright white feathers need to be echoed a bit in the shiny bark for the lighting to look "real".

When sharpening, as I did here, I usually sharpen to the point where it becomes apparent and then back it off some. I would rather have a touch of softness than have an image look slightly mashed or peppered by oversharpening. Adjusting the sharpening radius can help, depending on the situation.

Again, thank you for your suggestions and demonstrations.

[Randy Stout]

Craig:

I like your thought process here. I agree that my repost introduced some noise, and I was paying more attention to the lumniosity. I did a little noise reduction on the background. I didn't exclude your sig line, so its a bit blurred, but I think it gives the idea.

I left the reduced brightness of the right clump of leaves in the foreground, so it didn't compete quite so much with the bird.

I think David did a very nice job. Just depends on how much environment you want in the image.

Randy

[Craig Markham]

Thanks, Randy, I think you're right about the need to darken the leaf clump at the end of the perch. I probably would have gone for about half that amount. I like the detail in those leaves, but they were a tad bright in the original. I like the way your 2nd rendition separated the leaves a little more from the OOF BG clump. The OOF elements do contribute to a greater sense of depth in the image and pretty well frame the bird within the larger frame of the image. David's rendition eliminated that inner "frame", thus strengthening the overall image as a specimen bird photo. Both approaches have merit; it just depends on your goal.

I didn't notice the BG noise until you mentioned it. I underexposed slightly to maintain details in the white feathers. This may have contributed BG noise when I adjusted the brightness in PP.

Interesting to see the effect that noise reduction had on my sig line. In itself, the effect on the sig line is no big deal, but it's an important cautionary about the potential double-edged effects of noise reduction, sharpening and other image "adjustment" tools. Mis-applied, or overdone, they can really muddy things up.

Thank you for all your work on this. I've learned from all the comments, the dialogue, and from my own attempts to articulate what I see and wish to do with the image.

-- Craig

[Randy Stout]

Craig:

You are most welcome, and I learn a lot every time I work on an image, so I am learning right along with you.

Absolutely, the fewer adjustments you have to make the better the potential image quality. It just means you need to get it as good as possible out of the camera!

Cheers

Randy