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Red-crested Cardinal
This Red-crested Cardinal came to my feeder this morning while I was sitting on my porch playing with my new (well, new to me) 7D:
Canon 7D
Canon 70-300mm L at 221mm
1/3200s
f/5
ISO 400
Not much post-processing - I cropped off the left-hand side to make it a square crop and cloned out a few small leaves at the very bottom. I also lightened the shadow along his belly just a tad.
I had been sitting on my porch for a half hour and not having much luck trying to catch the Java Sparrows around my feeder in flight. I had just gotten up to go back in the house when this guy showed up, the first Red-crested Cardinal I had seen all morning. I had just enough time to turn my camera back on and snap this shot before he flew away.
Any C&C is appreciated. It's not the final word in sharpness but it's probably the best in-flight shot that I've taken of a bird this size. Is there anything I could have done or could still do in post to make this a better shot? It's a bit bright. Too bright? I played with turning down the exposure a bit but the bright red head lost its pop so I undid that.
Thanks,
Grant
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Hi Grant- These kind of images (bird jumping from perch) are very difficult to make sharp because it all happens so quickly and the focus is usually off. You nailed this one - the image is sharp where is needs to be- well done. Love the blue sky BG, although some noise is showing there, which would be easy to remove (mask out the subject and run NR on BG). There's an OOF squiggle at the bottom right and a small spot bottom left too- maybe some dust on the sensor? Regarding composition, I would give more room to the right for the bird to flying into and maybe less room at bottom and more on top (the bird's wing-tip is a little close to the edge). You had harsh light and you can even this out some in Adobe Camera Raw or in post processing with some dodging and burning or other techniques which we could get into if you need to.
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BPN Viewer
Hi Grant,
I really like this image and congrats on your new to you camera. The image looks great on my iPad 2. I agree that the image could use a little more room on the top and right side.
Good luck with your new camera!
Mark
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Very nice Grant! I've never seen one of these birds. I agree with everything Jeff said. You can easily take this photo from good, to really good. Nice job!
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Grant,
I like seeing new types of birds. It doesn't look over-exposed. The whites are 230 - 250 and have great detail. I like the catchlight and detail in the head and right wing. I second what John said regarding cropping.
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Thanks all for the comments. I figured that even if my shots could use a little work, I can still make it interesting by posting birds that are not commonly seen in many other places.
John, I think the OOF squiggle on the right is just a by-product of my poor cloning skills. The small spot on the left is just a hint of a leaf that I hadn't noticed.
Regarding the cropping, it does kind of leap out at me now that you mention it. Unfortunately, there's no space at the top or right in this particular image. Instead, I took a little more off the bottom and left. Of course, that makes a relatively tight shot a little bit tighter. Is it an improvement?
Regarding the BG noise, I guess I need to invest in some better software tools. I started out in Apple's Aperture, mostly because of price at the time. As far as I know, Aperture can't create masks to allow for selective NR, though I could certainly be wrong about that.
Grant
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Grant, you actually have the perfect background to expand your canvas. I've posted an example
of what you could possibly do. I did this with Photoshop.
Doug
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Doug, that never occurred to me. That's a great idea and everybody here is right, that crop does look better. I'll give it a try.
Grant
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Lifetime Member
Not quite sure why I am unable to view the first 2 posts, but I really like what Doug has done with the image. I like this different perspective...looking up at the take off. I love seeing the push off and the wings up. The detials under the birds are quite nice and the head shows up very well.
