Black-crested Titmouse

[CM Prince]

Nikon D90, 1/125 at f / 7.1, ISO 800, 290 mm, 7:30 AM

C&C greatly appreciated.
just trying to improve

Thanks for looking

C M

[Sandy Witvoet]

Super Cutsie pose.... love the open beak and raised crest...good detail! ...BG looks a bit noisy? Maybe a bit of a color cast?

[Diane Miller]

Hi CM,

There is a strong magenta cast here. It's common, and many people seem unable to see it -- whether it is them or their monitor I can't know.

You did convert to sRGB, so that part is correct, as long as you converted instead of assigning the profile. The latter is not right and will give you incorrect colors.

The first step to getting the correct while balance is in RAW conversion, with the Temp and Tint sliders. It can be tricky with a bird like this that doesn't have distinct colors. Don't believe the initial WB from the camera -- it's only a guess and can be very right or very wrong. In most RAW converters there is an eyedropper to let you click on an area you'd like to be neutral -- it may not be right but can give you a different look at where you started.

Sharpness is somewhat lacking here, too. You might want to explore the limits of your lens sharpness and camera stability with a still subject. It may just be subject movement. Birds can move very quickly. Bright light (but not direct sun) gives you more leeway for a fast shutter speed.

Keep at it -- you'll improve! We all have.

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

C M,

Greetings. Largely the color issue is in WB. On the capture side, the metadata attached to your photo shows you shot this with auto WB... not sure why this is off. I ran the jpeg through some of my standard workflow.

WB - middle dropper tool in Photoshop curves on various points on beak until happy (perhaps a little warm, but I tend to prefer warmer colors)
NR - I use Topaz DeNoise
Detailing/Sharpening - Topaz InFocus (overdone a bit... but here just to give an idea)

Nice capture. Our local titmice flit around quite a bit as I suspect these do as well. Good to get the open beak.

Thanks for posting.

Cheers,

-Michael-

[John Chardine]

If you have white balance set to auto and there's lots of green in the scene like this one, the camera will shift over to the magenta side like here (green and magenta are opposites). Nice adjustment by Diane- the bird's grey feathers are now neutral.

I like the pose and the bill-open. A natural perch would be a plus. I would like to see more detail in the feathers too. If I remember CM you had a post earlier talking about image quality and sharpness in your images. Your gear should be capable of more and I would like to get to the bottom of what is happening. It is very difficult to do so with a down-sized post to BPN. If you would care to send me an unprocessed, full-redolution jpeg of this image to chardinephoto(at)gmail(dot)com I'll take a look.

[Diane Miller]

I'd like to take credit but Michael deserves it! It is on the warm side now, as he points out, but not everything needs to neutralized. I'd bring up the darks a little -- it has a heavy look for such a delicate little bird.

The focus issue could be just the SS at that focal length, but it would be worth looking at how focus is being handled. One sensor on the main subject (head), Nikon's equivalent of AI Servo with focus active at the moment of exposure? Was IS on? The aperture could be a little smaller for being that close to a small subject. (A greater DOF won't compensate for missing focus in the first place, though.) It could possibly be focus calibration but that's the least likely.

[John Chardine]

Sorry, Michael, now I see it was your rework.

[John Chardine]

CM sent me the original image at full-res (a jpeg conversion but that's OK).

The posted image is fairly big crop- about 25% of the original pixels remain, so the issue of pixels on subject is relevant. At 100%, the fine detail is lacking (see attachment), which is partly from cropping but also perhaps from factors like AF adjustment. There is no camera or subject movement so we can eliminate those factors.

Having said this, I often get softer images in amongst a string of images made in rapid succession. I put it down to small and random shifts in the AF because I frequently use AI servo (Canon), or AF-C (Nikon) rather than locking on. Usually I will get a few really sharp images and I discard the soft ones.

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

CM, John,

Thanks for pursuing this, John. After looking at the 100%, it seems that the light is also a bit soft... then I realized that it appears that the OP was taken with the light source behind the subject (see left leg feathers). So what we are seeing is essentially the shadow side of the subject which partially explains the very cool auto WB. The lighting conditions increase noise on the subject (higher noise in shadows) and limit the capture of fine feather detail.

I'd recommend looking for better light angle and brighter light (for higher ss).

Cheers,

-Michael-