chestnut-backed chickadee

[Allen Hirsch]

Got a "clean" pose among some willow trees, in early-morning low light and heavy shadow. Removed extraneous branches via large crop initially, then one last very OOF vertical branch in PS5 for a "clean" BG.

50D + 500L f4.5 + non-reporting 1.4x, on tripod & Wimberley II. ISO 1250, f5.6, 1/250.


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[Kerry Perkins]

Allen, great job on the capture here and excellent eye to see the gorgeous background. Good for you for cranking up the ISO when you needed to, especially bold on the 50D (I have one!). Excellent pose, sharpness, head angle and good eye. I might take a little from the top, but let's see what others think about that. There are some shadowy artifacts above your signature that I would probably evict. Good one and well seen!

[Julie Kenward]

Allen, I don't know why but when I opened this up I immediately thought there was a color cast to the image so I put it through the Nik Software filter "correct color cast" and this is what it brought up. Seems a bit closer to what I'm used to seeing in these birds.

Lovely pose...nice eye contact and, yes, I'd also take some off the top and right side of the frame. Try using the ROT's guidelines as a crop and see what that brings up.

[Allen Hirsch]

Julie: What would cause the color cast, if I didn't change color temp from "as shot" - which was set to "cloudy", and this was captured in shadows?

And I could have sworn I had paid attention to the ROT grid when I originally cropped, but I see now that I did need to take some more off the top and the right.

Kerry: I find my 50D is fairly forgiving at higher ISOs, as long as I don't have huge contrast differences in the image, and I expose to the right.

[John Goldman]

I see too much space above the bird and not enough at the bottom. I probably would have moved the crop only down to raise the bird in the frame. The space in front of the bird, to me, is pleasing.

BG looks too clean(plain), no texture.

I have the same experience with the 50D, expose to the right is right, of course without blowing out the highlights.

[Allen Hirsch]

BG looks too clean(plain), no texture.



This may be the first time I've ever seen that critique here at BPN since I've joined the forum.

I didn't do anything to the BG but remove OOF branches via cropping and clone tool. Should I replace with a "busier" BG?? Add noise??

[John Goldman]

No, do not add noise or anything else.
I had made this same comment, "BG looks too clean", to a friend photographer and he came back with, "sure, that's a green blanket I had put up as a BG".
My comment, "BG looks too clean......" should have added, "too me". If that's the BG you got from the scene, and you like it, then, leave it the way it is.

[Julie Kenward]

Allen, any changes you make in pp can affect the colors as can the fact that what WB you shot at might have been just a tiny bit off in color in the first place. Just because we choose "shady" on a shady day doesn't mean it automatically makes our colors perfect - just closer to what they should be. Looking at the breast area of your bird I thought it felt a bit on the blue side so I rebalanced from that standpoint to bring that area closer to a truer gray. Again - it's subjective - but after looking at over 10,000 images here on BPN it rather jumps out at me this point.

Don't worry about the BG - "clean" is what most often works. It's certainly okay to leave a few branches for a more "environmental-type" image but when the bird is the subject and you have a fairly clear shot I say go for it and clean up the stragglers as you have done here. From a selling standpoint a clean BG will be more sought out.

[John Goldman]

Don't worry about the BG - "clean" is what most often works. It's certainly okay to leave a few branches for a more "environmental-type" image but when the bird is the subject and you have a fairly clear shot I say go for it and clean up the stragglers as you have done here. From a selling standpoint a clean BG will be more sought out.

I agree, "clean" is better. Maybe I didn't express myself correctly. I could have used "stark" rather than "too clean". This critiquing stuff is hard!! If you look at my "Just another chipping sparrow", I have a "clean" BG yet it has what I have to call shadowy and lighter areas that, for me, add some character to the image.