Black-capped Chickadee

[Enrique Patino]

Not sure if this comp works. cropped vertically from horizontal. Late evening light



7D, 500mm @ f/7.1, 1/1600, ISO 800, HH

Comments welcome. Thanks!

[Bill Dix]

This is a tough one, Enrique. The Chickadee and cattail are beautiful, with nice light, great detail, and I love the bit of fluff (nesting liner?) in the beak. The stem on the right adds a nice touch of color but to my eye it may be more distracting than helpful. I might consider an alternative that crops it out. Also possibly reduce the brightness of the oof stalk behind the bird and if you have room beneath, add some at bottom to move the bird up a bit.

[dankearl]

As nice as this is, the cattail is just a bit too big for me.
The chickadee looks great but is kind of lost…….

[Joseph Przybyla]

I am with Dan, the cattail is too large for this bird. If you crop to show more of the cattail stem then the bird would get too small. Nice processing, good background. If mine I would clone out the leaf on the right side.

[Daniel Cadieux]

I like what you were going for here, and I love that the chickadee is gathering what may be nesting material. I also like the marsh look the image has thanks to the cattail. I too am not crazy about the size of said cattail and how tight it is at bottom...I'd be curious to see the uncropped version to see if there are alternate crops possible.

[keith mitchell]

That stem on the right draws my eye all the time ,apart from that I think it's a very nice image, like the way that bird is going at that Bullrush head.

Keith.

[Enrique Patino]

Thanks all for your comments.

I find HH the 500mm I shooting vertical very hard without a battery grip. So I make do...

Daniel, this is the RAW file converted with LR3 straight up - no crop and no adjustments.




Maybe a tighter angle, although not exactly the same ??? also converted with LR3 straight up, no crop or adjustment.



and BTW, I think they are tearing the CT apart looking for bugs... so the essence of the image - if we use the tighter one - may not be lost ?!?

which one would you crop and how?

thanks!

[Daniel Cadieux]

Thanks for posting that Enrique. What I can say is that in time you'll get the hang of recomposing in-camera, especially useful using the back button focus...this can help de-centre the subject on the spot as having the subject dead centre can pose some challenges for cropping. What do you think of this version? Even with the behaviour I'm OK if you keep the subject small in the frame, and I cut the cattail at bottom to better anchor the image down there rather than having its' bottom hovering close to the edge. I smoothed out the oof branch at right but I did not bother with the bright streak at the tail but would also tone it down.

[Enrique Patino]

Thanks for posting that Enrique. What I can say is that in time you'll get the hang of recomposing in-camera, especially useful using the back button focus...this can help de-centre the subject on the spot as having the subject dead centre can pose some challenges for cropping. What do you think of this version? Even with the behaviour I'm OK if you keep the subject small in the frame, and I cut the cattail at bottom to better anchor the image down there rather than having its' bottom hovering close to the edge. I smoothed out the oof branch at right but I did not bother with the bright streak at the tail but would also tone it down.

You know, and here I am speaking only for myself (as I have not heard anyone speak of this in conversation), when I want to make sure I get images sharp-sharp, I spray on and off with the shutter as action occurs. This is partly to choose the best HA and moments of interest, but partly because I know that not all image in a burst are equally sharp - for me. Some because either I or the subject moved closer or further (and back button focus will not help here unless i keep it active), and partly to compensate for motion blur. I shoot HH and with a heavy lens and perhaps do not have the best long lens technique down. I've tried back button focus but I like using the joystick better. But sometimes is hard as I have yet to master its feel and use while HHing.

I like your comp a lot and thanks for the pointer about the anchoring the image... that is my tip of the day... thanks!

[Enrique Patino]

Thanks all for your comments and Daniel for your help. this is the final as I like it today... ;)

enrique