Sweet-looking bird, nice soft light and good position, although some folks will want the head angle more toward the viewer. That's not such a big deal for me, though. I would increase the exposure a little, and it looks like the focus wasn't critically on the eye, or else the SS was a little slow. Is this a crop? That won't help image quality.
I don't know of the perch is a setup, but the way the branch it's sitting on ends at the same point s the end of the log isn't visually pleasing. The darker stub makes it problematic, but would be nice to change your angle (or the perch's) just a little. Good perches are hard to find.
Greetings. I like the color contrast in this image with the green bg and reds in the subject. Overall, the light doesn't support the settings. I think most of the softness in the subject comes from motion blur... the feet look sharp but the body doesn't, suggesting some motion. I would probably be shooting at f/8 giving you a ss of about 1/1000 (assuming that bumping the ISO is noise limited). If this is like the wrens we have out here the chances of them remaining perfectly still is small ;-). Nice pose and a beautiful subject. Thanks for posting.
Nice pose and subject but I agree with the above that it is just a little soft. Also, if the perch is a set-up then you need a smaller diameter perch, something about the size of a pencil maybe a little larger, if it is not a set-up then you have to use what is given you. Overall it is still a nice image.
These guys do seem to move and twitch a lot so it is important to use a faster shutter speed. This is something I learned myself from shooting these guys. I was just wondering why you used f14?
Actually I can't criticize f/14 a lot -- if the image isn't a crop, I usually want that much DOF, but that's on a full-frame camera. If the D90 is a crop sensor or if this is a big crop, you probably could have gone with less. That can be one thing to bracket if you have time. And experience will be your guide.
Looking at it again, the amount of underexposure stands out even more. The accuracy of seeing that can be very dependent on the monitor calibration (and experience), but the histogram will tell the story. Here's a correction that looks better to me -- just a simple curve raised in the middle. I also warmed it just a little, although I don't know the bird's color.
Good repost with a simple correction. The criticism (at least on my part) wasn't f/14 per se but the shutter speed. Bumping up ISO might work instead depending on noise limits. D90 is a crop sensor (1.5).
With a 1.5 crop sensor, I agree that f/14 is probably more than you need. SS is often more critical than depth of field. With good control over focus, on the eye or whatever the critical part of an image is, a shallow DOF isn't seen as a big flaw, where subject or camera movement due to a low SS will soften the whole image.
It is walking a tightrope to balance SS, ISO and aperture, with even the highest end equipment.
Carolina Wren
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