Indigo Bunting

[Mike Quigley]

Canon 5D Mk3, Canon Ef 400 5.6 1/1000 @ F-11 560mm Iso 2500 EV

This is my first post, Im a little intimidated

[Gabriela Plesea]

Hello Michael, a warm welcome to BPN!

No need to feel intimidated, this is such a great learning forum and you will enjoy it here, I am certain!

Let me begin by saying I have never seen this species and was instantly tempted to open this thumbnail-what a cute little fellow! You have quite a bit of detail in those lovely dark blue feathers and the subject is sharp enough to my eyes, the only "sin" you might have made was to shoot at F-11, but you could always do some noise reduction or even take some more extreme measures to deal with this rather busy background. Not sure what software you are using so will not elaborate further but feel free to drop me a private message or e-mail and we can think of something to improve this image together. Surely a keeper and my last thoughts on this would be to attempt a square crop (taking a bit off the top) and cloning out those branches at the bottom of the image.

Hope to see more images from you, well done!

Kind regards,

[gail bisson]

Welcome and don't be intimidated.
You have a very pretty and photogenic bird for us to enjoy.
I have a few suggestions for you to consider.
My first thought when i saw the picture was that it was very dark. I would increase the exposure or brightness on the bird.
I see a magenta cast in the BG and branches, If you have Photoshop or LR you can easily fix this by going to color balance and decreasing the magenta by a point or two.
I would also do some noise reduction on the BG.
The broken twigs at the bottom of the frame are unfortunate. I don't know your skill level in PP but I would clone the biggest one out, eliminating the inverted bright 'V' of that branch in front of the foot. You may have been able to avoid those branches in the field by getting lower and shooting up a bit.
A good first post and I look forward to more,
Gail

[Daniel Cadieux]

Hi there Mike...welcome to the Avian forum!!!

Awesome species, I got my first opportunities with one last year and it was a bird photography highlight of last summer for me. The perch itself is nice and thin, details on the subject look good. Good profile pose. The subject is rather low in the frame, but pointing your camera down would have introduced more distractions below. It would be worth trying to get this fella to perch higher, and in a spot better separated from the BG as to me that is the main issue you got here. Image perhaps a tad dark, but it looks like it is an accurately exposed heavy-overcast scene. Worth brightening up by half a stop or so nonetheless.

So, better comp and better BG and you'd have a clear winner...always fun to try again, especially when it means observing such beautiful species.

Hoping to see more images and participation from you, now that you have your feet wet

[Mike Quigley]

Thanks to all of you, this is the best site and Ive learned so much already. Ill work on this some more and try again. Thanks all

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Mike, I would avoid hefty crops so you ensure you get the best IQ, cropping so tight will never give you a good image. Also I think your best starting point would be to get the WB right, then move on from there, just saw a file from Gabriela. Perhaps even going to f/8 might also have helped too?

TFS
Steve

[Mike Quigley]

Thanks again everyone. I reworked the background, and lightened up the body. Steve was right I probably cropped too much. I think this is a little better.