UK Nuthatch

[Richard Greenwood]

Taken on Wednesday when the light was truly grey & awful. The site where this was taken was in a wooded area, so my light was reduced further. Still not getting shutter speeds high enough I think.



1/100, ISO 1250, 400mm f5.6 +2/3 EV, AV mode. I have tweeked this slightly in PSE with adjusted colour curves, shadow/highlights & a bit of sharpening.

Richard

[Kerry Perkins]

Richard, what camera body were you using here? There is a significant amount of noise throughout the image, undoubtedly due to the higher ISO. I suggest selecting the bird and doing some aggressive noise reduction on the background and foreground. Once you have the bird isolated, you could also expel the distracting branches in the bg and add some sharpening to the bird. The image lacks critical focus, were you hand-holding at 1/100? This image has a lot of potential, and a bit of work would make it a lot stronger. Overcast days are not awful, but afford us opportunities to shoot in soft, even light. What has to be done in post processing is to add back the saturation and detail that we lose with that type of light. It is actually a good time to shoot! I'm curious about the perch - it appears to have a green/purple color cast that is not as evident in the rest of the image. You have good basic concepts, just need to keep shooting and posting!

[Richard Greenwood]

Hi Kerry,

Thanks for posting - what a learning curve!!

I'm using a 7D & this was hand held. The perch is actually a rock/stone edge to a public footpath in one of our local woods.

I know this isn't one of my best, but I was quite pleased to get so close!!

Richard

[Kerry Perkins]

Richard, I also shoot with a 7D and 400mm f/5.6. Getting close is a necessary and sometimes overlooked skill that is even more important to those of us who are "focal length challenged". You did a great job of getting close to the bird. Hand-holding at a shutter speed this low is dicey at best, you actually did really well with that but I don't recommend it as a standard practice.

I took the liberty of working your image just a bit to show the possibilities. I applied two rounds of noise reduction (Topaz DeNoise) on the bg. I tried to correct the color cast but it's just too difficult to do with a JPEG. Do you shoot RAW? I also added some color to the bird and sharpened it some. I didn't try to clone out the branches in the bg, but once you have the bird and bg isolated it is not that difficult. Keep them coming!