Black-capped Chickadee in flight [repost]

[Nikhil Patwardhan]

-- Reposting here after feedback from the Avian forum --

It was late in the afternoon on this past weekend with the cloudy weather in New York state. I was at my brother's place and he has feeders set up at his house. This Black-capped Chickadee was photographed just as it left the feeder. The blur, while not intentional while capturing this image, I think makes it more moody and perhaps a bit abstract.

The photo was clicked at ISO 1600, 1/1000 sec @ f/8 with a D7000 and 300mm AF ED-IF (non AF-S, non AF-I) + 2x TC-301 in manual focus mode, tripod mounted (Bogen 3011 legs with Bogen 3038 head). Being a noisy and rather monotone image, I desaturated the photo substantially and tweaked the white balance. Only global adjustments were made in Lightroom 4 with the curves and clarity slider.

[Dennis Bishop]

Thanks for posting this here. I like what you've done with the image. The desaturation along with the level of contrast you used gives it a very pleasant soft feeling, and the blur adds to that. It's also nice that the chickadee is at the transition between the dark and light parts of the background and its direction of flight is aligned with it.

[Cheryl Slechta]

Hi, Nikhil, it's nice to see you posting in OOTB. I agree with Dennis' critique - I'm partial to blurs and I like the soft, abstract look that you've gotten.

[Diane Miller]

This is a very artistic and pleasing image! It is different from the usual blurs we see, although I can't describe how, except that there seems to be an aura of diffusion.

[Anita Bower]

The various shades of grey, from black to white, are soft and pleasing. The position of the bird in the frame is nice. I wonder what it would look like with a bit more blur--something painterly. I just tried it in Topaz Simplify, and liked what I saw. You might run a round of noise reduction also. Glad to have you posting here!

[Nikhil Patwardhan]

Dennis, Cheryl, Diane, Anita,
Glad that you liked this (esp. Diane who suggested the different composition in the Avian forum) Many thanks for your thoughtful feedback

Anita,
Thanks for the suggestion, I will try it