I finally got out to do some birding today, after a couple months of uncooperative work schedule and weather. Got this shot of (I think) a Savannah Sparrow. C&C always welcome.
Canon 7D
Canon EF 400mm f/5.6L lens
1/800 second, f/5.6, ISO 400
Very nice shot of the sparrow Eric. Nice head angle and eye contact. It appears the whole photo is a bit over sharpened including the background noise. Using selective sharpening on just the bird, instead of a global sharpening method, will help with this. I would also clone out the top branch in the left corner as well as the branch running into the bird's back. Sometimes we have no choice where the bird is perched, but try moving around to get the cleanest background possible. Even then we don't always get a pleasing background, so cloning out some of the distracting elements might be needed. Looking forward to more!
Lovely little poser and super light. You have good exposure and nice details. Peter's recrop works better by removing some of the distracting elements.
Thanx for the kind words. I noticed the background noise, too. I just got my 7D and mostly post-process using actions I made for my T1i. Looks like I'll have to redo them for the new camera. I didn't think about removing the background clutter, but it does look better without it.
Flickr renamed all of my photos, so everything I've ever linked to are now dead links. Here it is, again. Still a little grainy on the bottom. I have to say, the RAW files from the 7D are a pain to work with. I'm starting to think that they could have made a much better camera by putting the sensor from the T1i into the 7D body. Not only are most of my shots soft, but sharpening them doesn't reverse the softness, it just puts halos around it.
I do convert my RAWs with DPP. I've micro-adjusted all my lenses (which produce very sharp photos with my T1i, so I don't think that there are any internal faults with them) and I use selective sharpening (altho I haven't tried lab mode sharpening on my 7D files, yet). I've read every tutorial, article, and forum post I can find on how to get the most out of the 7D. While some shots come out looking great, others come out soft and noisy (even if I expose "to the right" and bring the exposure back down in post). I never had these problems with my T1i.
Savannah Sparrow (I think)
Posting Permissions
