House Wren?

[Dvir Barkay]

My smaller bird identification is still getting better, so I am not 100% sure I am right about the species. Taken in the morning today, the background is a bit distracting, but there is not too much I can do. I liked the birds pose and the eye contact.
Canon 1DmrkIII, Canon 300/2.8 L USM IS with x1.4TC, F/7.1, ISO 500, 50% of original image, John Heinz Wildlife Refuge, 2014

[Edward Arthur]

I can't help with identification but that is a very nice shot. As for the background, you can mask it off in PS and decrease the greens/yellows. I was given that advice here once and have taken it to the bank. It works.

[Dvir Barkay]

I can't help with identification but that is a very nice shot. As for the background, you can mask it off in PS and decrease the greens/yellows. I was given that advice here once and have taken it to the bank. It works.

Thanks for the reply, glad you like it. I actually already did a backround mask and lowered the greens by quite a bit. The colors this time of year are very saturated, it helps make the image warmer, but can be a bit of nuisance at times as well.

[Diane Miller]

Whatever it is, it's cute! BG is still on the verge of competing with the subject, but I must admit, it's pretty. Have the highlights on the bird gone a tiny bit gray?

[Dvir Barkay]

Whatever it is, it's cute! BG is still on the verge of competing with the subject, but I must admit, it's pretty. Have the highlights on the bird gone a tiny bit gray?

Yes it is, although if I am right about the species, it has a dark personality of killing other birds chicks and taking its nest. The bird was a bit overexposed, so there are indeed a couple spots that are blown out a bit, maybe my attempt to recover the whites has lead to slight graying of the whites.

[Jim Keener]

There is a certain amount of enthusiasm in the photograph for me. I was glad to see it. I especially like the way the green contrasts with the rust of the bird's feathers. Focus, of course, is near spot on. I have a sense of learning about the bird by looking at your photograph. I agree with the comments on background, and have nothing to add there. Thanks for sharing this.

[Dvir Barkay]

I reprocessed it, DPP does a bad job in recovering highlights and makes them gray. Thus I redid it, this time working on the highlights in CS6, using a few rounds of midtone and highlight curves to recover the details, while still leaving the whites as they should look. I hope this new version is better.

[Dvir Barkay]

There is a certain amount of enthusiasm in the photograph for me. I was glad to see it. I especially like the way the green contrasts with the rust of the bird's feathers. Focus, of course, is near spot on. I have a sense of learning about the bird by looking at your photograph. I agree with the comments on background, and have nothing to add there. Thanks for sharing this.

Thanks, I am happy that you like it

[Akshay Charegaonkar]

I like the bird pose and your angle. The background is a bit busy but of course there's not much to be done about it in the wild. I'm not on my calibrated monitor, but the greens look a few percent too saturated on my laptop's screen. All in all, a good effort, well worth the time.

[Diane Miller]

Stacking the two shows a great improvement in discriminating values in the highlight areas, which also gives the impression of greater sharpness.

When you say you reprocessed with CS6, I assume you meant Adobe Camera Raw? Or did you just do curves on the DPP version? You could get even more tonal separation in the lights with ACR/LR, using the greater tonal overhead in the raw file. The new Process 2012 versions of ACR (also in LR) have amazing tonal control for lights and darks.

[Dvir Barkay]

Stacking the two shows a great improvement in discriminating values in the highlight areas, which also gives the impression of greater sharpness.

When you say you reprocessed with CS6, I assume you meant Adobe Camera Raw? Or did you just do curves on the DPP version? You could get even more tonal separation in the lights with ACR/LR, using the greater tonal overhead in the raw file. The new Process 2012 versions of ACR (also in LR) have amazing tonal control for lights and darks.

Yes, I know it does such a better job than DPP, but I do prefer DPPS color at the moment, and its sharpening is pretty good as well. For my other cameras I use Camera raw. I also tried using Camera RAW for this image, and it does a nice job, but I can do as good a job inside photoshop with recovering highlights with curves. I do think it looks better like you say, also the greens aren't over saturated, I had to take it back down actually. The morning light does an amazing job with making greens really green.

[Diane Miller]

For me, the color issues with LR/ACR are taken care of if I change the camera profile from Adobe Standard, to Camera Faithful or whichever one looks best as a starting point. Then of course some color tweaks back in basic and HSL.

[Sandy Witvoet]

Great singing shot, Dvir! I would agree that this is a House Wren... they tend to be quite aggressive. As one of our "dullest" (aka, no prominent field marks), you did a good job of pulling out details. On the breast, where the bird is usually "white-ish", they tend to be a bit "dirty" this time of year, from going in and out of nest cavities. He might have a little "owie" on the right side of his neck.

[WillieHall]

Dvir, nice composition and correct ID. These are aggressive defending their territories. Very sharp and I can see the improvement in the 2nd workup. Maybe you can look at the whites in the Evening Grosbeak I posted to see if anything can be done.