Cardinal Through the Window

[Tom Patterson]

This cardinal kept flying around my camper window, apparently seeing his reflection. He did it often enough that I had time to get my camera ready. This is one of the poses I captured.
Used my Canon 5D MkII, 28-135 lens, 1/800, f5.6, ISO 1000.
Photo was edited in Photoshop CS5 RAW editor and completed with cropping in PS. Edited to about a 50% crop. After looking at the pic here, I think I over-saturated the colors.

Thanks for any pointers.

[Dan Brown]

Very nice attempt Tom! It's not at all easy to capture songbirds in flight! Good use of a short lens also. You are right that the image is over saturated and I also think it is over exposed. The reds look blown here. Maybe you could return the raw image and lower the sat on the red and lower the exposure. A higher shutterspeed would have probably solved these problems and frozen the bird in flight more effectively (a little blur in the wing here). I would have chosen 2500 ss and what ever iso it took to get a proper exposure which probably would have been something very close to what you chose here, given that this image is so hot (over exposed). Good, fast thinking though!

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Tom,

Dan provided a solid critique, especially the point about saturated colors. Some birds like Cardinals require the primary colors to be reduced. I usually use a -9 or greater on the reds; view the red channel to see the overexposure. Cardinals can protect their territory as well and as your noted could see the reflection as possible intruders. What was the exposure mode,..Manual, AV, TV or Program?

The opportunity here is the soft image (need faster shutter) and the over saturated reds; large crop can affect image quality too. As a genera rule we try and make the subject at lest 20% of the frame prior to cropping. Nice work to be ready and leverage the short-lens. The large catch light in the eye is a sign of motion blur and the bright spot on the bill shows hot pixels. Practice reading the histogram and making adjustments - thats what the pro do. Just curious, do you have reading material such as "Digital Basics & The Are of Bird Photography" These are reference materials I consult monthly,...

By the way, love the action pose and great shot of the primary feathers - keep at it - thanks for sharing.

[Tom Patterson]

Many thanks Dan and Jeff. You confirmed some of the things I thought needed attention and gave me new ideas. I was shooting in TV (shutter priority mode). Most of the other shots had the bird sitting still on a vine so I was not as prepared as I should have been for his takeoff.
I need to check on the reading material you suggested Jeff. The internet has been my primary info source. In regard to the 20%, subject to frame, I should have been closer or zoomed in more to hit that mark? I did crop the photo (likely too much) to get the "up-close" effect and realize that it doe effect image quality. You go with what you got. :)

Here is another version of the photo, using the suggestions you guys made about exposure and saturation. I think it looks much better. Thanks again!