Carolina Chickadee

[David Bose]

Canon T2i + Canon 400mm 5.6L 1/320 f/5.6 ISO 640

I captured this image last week on an overcast day. I would have liked a bit more depth of field, maybe f8, but really didn't want to push the ISO much higher. This was a surprise visit, a pair of Carolina Chickadee's that I have never seen before. They sure didn't sit in one spot very long .

I was originally going to post a lesser cropped version that had more branches with some small white blooms but decided maybe it was too distracting and the subject was too small.

Thanks,
David

[Raybel Robles]

Hi David,

The composition of the image is good with a nice head angle from the bird. The clean green background is a plus too. My only problem it seems to be that the bird is a bit overexposed along with the branch. You may try using the selection tool in PS and selectively adjust the exposure a bit more; maybe recovering from the highlights may help. I would also run a bit of noise reduction to the background.

[Randy Stout]

David:

I think the subject size in the frame you chose is very good, background is flattering.
The exposure is pretty close to my eyes, with just a few whites on the cheek in the high 240 rangs.
The bird does seem to be a bit oversharpened, with the feathers starting to look just a bit overdone.

Good job catching the unexpected visitors.

Cheers

Randy

[David Bose]

Thanks Randy! I think the only sharpening that was done was in LR, sharpening is defaulted to 25, then when exporting I used "standard" for screen. I agree, I too thought there was too much sharpening but looking at it in LR before export it seems that way too.

Would I be better off setting my LR sharpening default to 0?

[Randy Stout]

David:

I also use the LR sharpening preset at 25, and don't normally see this effect. How do you have the other sharpening sliders set?

I was going to guess it was your final sharpening when exporting, but it sounds like that wasn't the case. Have you noticed other images coming out oversharpened?

Cheers

Randy

[David Bose]

Randy,

I think I found the issue. I forgot I had sharpened the face (+35) using the LR adjustment brush, then my overall sharpening was at +25, and then 'Normal sharpened for screen' at export.

The above image is before I had removed a branch in PS. This time I removed the adjustment brush sharpening but left the default sharpening at +25 and used Normal sharpening for screen at export.





Then this image there is zero sharpening.

[Randy Stout]

David:

I think the combination of the extra sharpening you discovered and the branch removal giving a slight irregularity to the feathers on the wing explains my observations on the original.

Good to get it figured out.

Cheers

Randy