Goldfinch on Teasel

[Simon Wantling]

Managed to get this shot today plus a couple more to process of this Goldfinch. I appreciate that the background is a tad messy but I like the context of the photo and thought there was to much to clone out. I also liked the warm hint from the late afternoon sun. I would appreciate and suggestions and feedback on how to improve my post processing which was done in Lightroom 3 and Photoshop Elements 10. I'm now beginning to get more confidence on my 100-400mm lens and now realise that the optimum distance for any decent shot with detail is 20-30 feet. I've been shooting photos with subjects 20 -30 meters away and expecting to heavily cropped and maintain sharpness and detail.

I would really like to now who you guys manage to get so close to your subjects? Is it a case of waiting and hiding away.

Canon 7D, 100-400mm @ 400mm, ISO 200, f7.1, 1/500, AI Servo

http://www.back-garden-moths.co.uk/7D/Goldfinch Webfile.jpg

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Simon, I like the IQ in this one. Glad you could get close to the bird. nice light and composition. Better BG would have been great. But since you were close, you could blur it and create some separation.

It is difficult to get very close to these song birds in the field. I think better tactic is to get the bird close to you. Using food, playing tape calls etc.

I also agree that it is not a good practice to heavily crop images...esp. the ones with busy BG. With 7D, you have details but the with high shooting distance, the DOF is also high and even wide-open at f/5.6, a busy Bg is not going to be rendered smooth.

If your base IQ is good ( which means noise is less, sharpness is excellent, no camera or motion blur), BG is clean ( like sky, calm water, really distant land), then your scope for cropping heavily is more. You cannot crop every image to the same extent...depends on the image.

[Simon Wantling]

Thanks for the advice. I'll have another tinker with it and blur out the background and see how that improves it.

[Simon Wantling]

Took your advice and blurred the background slightly. I didn't want to go to far as I thought it would look fake, but I think its an improvement.

http://www.back-garden-moths.co.uk/7D/Goldfinch Webfile 2.jpg

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

I dont do much BG blurring in post...but the effect here is nice. subtle and makes a difference.