American Goldfinch

[Neil Nourse]

One from this past weekend. I would like it a bit more to the right but it's about the only way the crop would work. Basic LR adjustments, Cloned out a leaf in LRC,slight burn on breast, BKG NR. Not sure why but IQ seems to be lacking on crown of head? I see I accidentally had all points focus on, maybe not enough DOF.

1D3, 700mm, 1/800, f/10, ISO 800, Tripod, Hide, audio attracted.

TFL Neil

[Marina Scarr]

You have a lovely bird here with wonderful feather details and gorgeous BG. It's odd how the eye is tack sharp but the crown looks a tad soft. I can't explain that either, esp since you were at F10. If it were mine, I would cline out the stem of the leaf below the bird's tail. I think it detracts. I also think this is a pretty good crop b/c the bird is looking to the left, so you would like him to have space to look into.

[gail bisson]

Neil.
You have identified all the issues!!Maybe do some selective sharpening on the top of head? We have so many goldfinches in our backyard these days that I find it funny that you needed a call to bring them in. Ours are so tame they won't get off the feeder when I go to refill it!!
Nice BG anf great feather detail on chest and belly
Gail

[Dumay de Boulle]

Lovely clean BG and perch...issues have been mentioned by you also some of the yellow lacks detail on the chest but only some areas...TFS Neil

[Stu Bowie]

Good points from above, and you certainly captured a good pose and HA. I do like the pastel yellows on the finch.

[Chad Caswell]

Neil, great job on exposing this one, love the bkg it goes very nice with the pale yellow bird, I agree with Marina about the stem. I'm thinking at f10 if you were at min focus or there abouts you could very well have a soft crown. @ 700mm f10 with a M3 subject distance 16' you only have a 1" DOF. :c3:

Gorgeous shot!

Chad

[Herb Houghton]

Nice image of the goldfinch. I agree with some oof stem removal mentioned earlier.

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Niel, nice pose, HA and wonderful BG. A tad more DOF( to get the other foot sharp) would have been nice but you were clearly very very close. Well done.

I am liking the yellow color but my suspicion is that red channel is pretty close to 255 in some spots around the throat. You might be able to go back to the RAW file and extract more details in the yellows by playing with the red and green channels a bit.

[Neil Nourse]

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions.

I'm not going to spend more time on this shot as I am not happy with the soft crown. Time to spend more time in the field and work toward a better one! :S3:

Chad, I think you may well be right. I normally move the focal point to match the eye but I mistakenly hit all points on, so it probably focused off the breast, and that more than likely would put the crown out of DOF :e3

[noelle zaleski]

Neil, I really like this one!

The background really makes him stand out.

I agree that the leaves underneath should go.

Well done! :S3:

[Jim Crosswell]

Nice image Neil! I like the pose and HA. Look forward to seeing more in this series.