I took this photo of a House Sparrow hunting for insects along a fence line where it kept hovering while looking around the nettles below.
I am unsure about the fence in the background as it tells part of the story.
Nikon D7000 Nikon 300mm AF ED. 1/500 sec f4 ISO 320.
Adjustment to levels slight crop to top and sides (90% FF) and sharpening.
I like this one Iain. I think I would like it better without the fence. The nettles add a great "base" to the image and they are well-balanced and in-focus. I like the design with the bird placed in the middle of the image. You could imagine other crops too but it depends on what else you have to work with in the original image (sounds like not much- "slight crop"). Nice capture of behaviour too. Not easy to get these in focus where it matters.
Thanks John.
Do you have any suggestions on how to remove the fence? I did try adding a Gaussian blur to the backgound by selecting it with the quick selection tool but found it very difficult to not select any of the sparrow. can adjustment layers or something be used?
Hi Iain, I agree with John, a difficult image to pull off and a fine balance to get the head sharp, but with enough SS to retain a slowish wing beat. I think you could have gone to ISO400 just to add a hint more SS, but it would still retain enough of the blurring of the wings. Personally I would have preferred the subject to be more on the LHS for composition, however being central as presented is fine, I don't think cropping will help in this instance. I did try blurring the BKG to knock back the fence, but it conflicts with the wings and so I would leave as is. What I would do is adjust the greens to give more depth & detail to the nettles in HSL and add some more selective sharpening to the head, it can take it. Please check your setting for web, as the image shows it having an untagged profile.
Iain, again this is quickly done on the laptop as I'm away, just finished up the Little owl project, so I hope the colours are OK. Having spent a lot of time in nettles as the owls having been 'worming' I can sympathise with you in getting the shot.
Hope this helps.
TFS
Steve
Post Production: It’s ALL about what you do with the tools and not, which brand of tool you use.
Hi Iain- All I did here was to mask off the bird and the nettles (Quickmask), invert the mask to select the bird and nettles and copy selection to a separate layer (Command-j). Then you can merrily edit the rest of the image without fear of affecting the main subjects. To remove the fence I just used the clone tool set at about 50-75% flow. You should give it a try as practise makes you better at all this.
Steve I can see how altering the HSL has improved the detail in the nettles and how the head could have been sharpened more. I will have a go myself. When you mention the untagged profile I had to do a save for web from photoshop as the file size was too big after working on it. Normally my final export is from Lightroom. Is this likely to be the cause?
John Thanks for telling me about that technique I will definitely give that a go. Your result is better than I got the way I tried bluring the background.
Iain, if you use PS then IMHO you firstly need to change the Profile and this is done under Edit > Convert to profile. Take a look at the Sticky I wrote Save for Web in the Wildlife section. Remember the file size has changed since, but this is still the platform to work to IMHO to avoid issues like this. if in doubt drop me a PM.
steve
Post Production: It’s ALL about what you do with the tools and not, which brand of tool you use.
I skimmed the thread and the high points were well discussed...the main issues for me are too much foreground in the OP and the subject needs more critical detail. See the rather large soft catch-light in the eye. That is motion blur...need a tripod or more shutter speed...the Nikon can handle much more ISO and when you double it you gain a stop of light....now were talking.
I like the composition..original and behavior shots like this are interesting. Consider moving the subject more to the left would give the it more room to look into the frame and add balance to the image.
Nice post and please keep em coming....good capture.
Last edited by Jeff Cashdollar; 08-03-2013 at 02:37 PM.
Like this image - interesting behaviour and composition. I wouldn't have placed the subject in the centre (but perhaps you did this to take advantage of more accurate AF point in the centre) and I would work on the greens. They might even be a bit too yellow, perhaps try adjusting the Hue slightly, or the whole white balance of the image. Try adjusting the Yellow/Green slider in Hue and the Green slider in Luminance to reduce the brightness of the nettles and draw more attention to your subject.
Ed
Thanks for all your comments and advice. I am just catching up after two week away with no internet!
Jeff I find a tripod very restrictive for birds in flight but agree I could have upped the ISO to get a faster shutter speed.
Edward I sometimes think that setting my white balance to daylight make my images look a little yellow as was the case with this image. I also feel though that leaving them on them auto when taken on a sunny day leaves them looking a little cold.
House Sparrow hunting
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