Unknown little fellow

[Mats Honkamaa]

http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/3990/img6564web.jpg
Canon 7D with EF400/5.6L USM | f/5.6, 1/1600 sec, ISO800

First of all maybe someone can help me identify this little fellow. Found him in northern Finland, I am pretty sure its a juvenile. I'm not very good at birds even though I like photographing them.

I cloned away little grass in BG and also brightened the birds face little bit since it was darkened by shadow (light is coming from left). I tried to sharpened the bird little as well.

How can I improve this photo? It is cropped maybe 50% from orignial so other crops would work as well.

[John Chardine]

Hi Mats- We have a forum for bird ID and biology called "All about birds". However, as you are asking for critique here we can deal with both. First on the ID I think you are right that it is a young bird. My vote is for a young Winchat Saxicola rubetra based on the overall look, mottling on the feathers, the eye-ring, light superciliary (stripe above the eye, hard to see in this image), dark auricular (ear) patch, and the strongly edged wing coverts. By the way do you have Lars Jonsson's Birds of Europe book? It's fantastic and is of course available in Swedish.

Now to the image- the main issue with the image, and you have identified this, is the strong side-lighting of the subject producing a bright side (left) and a dark side (right). The best thing to do in these situations if you can is to move around so the sun is more or less behind you. Slight off angle behind you is fine. There are processing tools in Photoshop that would allow you to tone down the bright parts and brighten the dark parts. Fill light and the Exposure sliders in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) would work, as would Shadows and Highlights in Photoshop itself. It looks like you tried to lighten the dark side of the bird because I can see a halo in the BG. The tools I mentioned would avoid this problem (or you could mask out the bird and lighten).

I like the crop except that there is too much negative space above the bird. You could lose some of that.

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Mats,
Nice pose and I like the clean background. What a difference a little head turn would have made. Generally I do not use IOS higher that 400 on my 7D, but that's me, due to noise issues. Assume you increased the ISO to gain more light which is the correct method if light was low. It is one thing to shot in low light it is another to try and avoid shadows if possible. Keep posting you are on the right track!

[Kerry Perkins]

Hi Mats, most everything has been covered above. I would add that there is some blurry vegetation or something on top of the rock, just in the center, that should be cloned out. I don't think you need to go with ISO 800 here, the shot would actually have worked better with 400 and all other settings the same. As John says, you can attempt to fix harsh light in processing, but it is far better and easier to get it right in the camera.