A family of Northern Cardinals frequently visits the feeder in my yard. Only rarely does one perch on an attractive flower.
1DMkII, 500f/4 +1/4. ISO400 1/60@ f5.6, tripod. Comments appreciated.
I think the slow shutter speed hurt you on this one Would not hesitate to go higher Some noise would be better to blur !!!! As presented would have less space behind the bird and more up front !!! With that perch you could do different things One is to place the bird in the upper right corner I would probably show less perch and place on the lower right Just a personal preference
I like the pose and perfect head angle You should have a chance at many more !!!
Al, Not sure what you are saying about the shutter speed.
Susan, I really like this one as is. Sharp, sweet light, nice BKGR. Pointing the lens to the left a bit was an option. A really high level suggestion would be for you to have moved to your left one foot and then placed the bird in the U-R-C. This would have placed the bird totally against the darker part of the BKGR (and might have been very effective).
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I really like the background in this one, Susan. I think some selective noise reduction would work nicely. Agree about placing your subject to the right of the frame :)
I think what Al is saying is higher ISO for more DOF, not shutter speed. I tend to agree with that. Here is a repost with a slightly different crop. The lower right corner doesn't work for me.
Susan, I agree with Al on this one. The bird's head is not sharply focused. Higher ISO could have given you the shutter speed necessary for a sharper image. DOF is nice, and bumping your ISO can give you the room to stop down and increase DOF. But increasing DOF is not the cure for an out-of-focus head and eye. Those should always be in focus. Increased DOF will help you get the tail sharper. Just my $0.02.
Last edited by Doug Brown; 04-22-2008 at 02:35 PM.
Doug, Take a look at the first post. The head is sharper. I must not have sharpened the second post as much. I don't see the head as OOF, but maybe my eyes deceive me.
I like the repost a bit more than the first. It was a lot of perch for me. I do think the repost is a little softer. I have a heck of a time sharpening for the sizes that we must post online.
Female Cardinal on Costa flower
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