Female Cardinal
One from the blind a few days ago. Taken with the canon 7D and 100-400mm on tripod.
ISO - 400
W/B - Daylight
@ 235MM
F4.5
1/500
I had to crop some of the image to straighten it. Did some minor sharpening in Photo Shop. Please let me know if the bird looks straight enough or if she needs more rotating.
Thanks!
-Dave
The straightening looks good to me. Beautiful bird with wonderful BG colors to match!! The size in the frame is fine with me, too -- with the large branch, a somewhat tight crop as you have here keeps the bird more dominant.
If the sharpening was on a separate layer, you might experiment with masking it out on the branch, if you didn't already. The detail there competes with the bird a little, and it looks as though the focus may have hit the branch instead of the bird's head. Always difficult to know that, though, without looking at the original capture at 100%.
Female cardinals are wonderful subjects -- hope you will continue to have opportunities to shoot them -- and to post for our enjoyment!
Your crop is fine. Focus is just a tad soft on the bird so Diane might be right - focus might have been on the branch. Nice shot, regardless!
Hi Dave, love the crop and overall composition. Nice color in the eye. Rotation looks fine, as does focus. (focus circle suggests the head was close to center.) I think the issue here is a moving aubject and relatively low SS...the tripod afforded a nice sharp branch but at that shutter speed and magnification, the bird has to be absolutely still to capture the finer feather details. Still, it's a really nice shot and as Diane suggested, selectively dialing back sharpness on the branch will help. Was this output sharpened?
Yes, 1/500 could be a little low -- birds can twitch very fast. And for this much magnification, f/4.5 is going to give you a very narrow range of critically sharp depth of field. I try to shoot as many exposures as I can while a bird is "posing," getting the focus sensor on the head and re-focusing each shot. Some will be sharp and some won't.
The focus was around the birds head. But it was moving a lot. I only got four frames before it took off. I will try using the masking layer and only sharpen the bird and not the branch and see how that comes out. Randall yes this was output sharpened in LR and then I added a little more (not much) in Photo Shop. Thanks for the pointers.
- Dave
Female Cardinal Repost
I attempted just sharpening the cardinal using a layer mask in Photo Shop. Let me know what you think.
-Dave
I didn't see any obvious difference so I opened both in PS and stacked them as layers. Clicking the top layer on and off, I don't see a difference. Tried it twice to be sure I didn't inadvertently grab the same image. Maybe you uploaded the original image again??
Do you see a difference when you click the masked layer on and off?
A litle more sharpening
Diane I can see the difference on the branch. I tried a little more sharpening on the bird again on this repost. This one I could see the difference on the bird more but it is a slight difference. Again I did not want to over sharpen. To me the bird looks over sharpened now.
David, in both RP's I see a slight difference in contrast (or midtone exposure) as both seem lighter re: bird. The last one does look crisper, right on the edge of OS as you noted. I'd go with the original exposure, mask and sharpen as in the 1st RP and try a clarity bump on the masked bird in an attempt to bring out some finer edges.
David I think your first post was good. To my eyes, I think if you just lightened the face and eye a little that may have done the trick. Nonetheless, this is a very nice image in all respects. The colors look right, the exposure is good and the BG is very nice too.
Beautiful image of a lovely lady, David! Pose is perfect and the complementary BG is wonderful. I can see the difference in sharpening in your first RP (which is my favorite), especially on/around the lichen(?) areas of the branch. 2nd round of sharpening on the bird did bring out more detail near the face, which looks good to me... but a portion of the back seems a bit grainy. Great job on the colors and exposure.
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The last RP (in pane #9) looks good to me, but that could be a difference in monitors. Or eyes. You can always sharpen on a separate layer and mask it to just the areas that seem to need it.
I think you did a good job of salvaging a little lack of critical sharpness on the face. Hope this bird hangs around for you!
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