Western Bluebird female

[Diane Miller]

I was trying my new 7DII on a dreary cloudy day when this bluebird came to the water dish. 600mm II, big Gitzo, Wimberley head. ISO 1600, f/7.1, 1/400. Exposure comp was + 2/3. About 50% crop, from a horizontal original. Minimal adjustments needed in LR 5, then to CS6 for lightening the branch. Just for interest, no NR or sharpening (except the LR default of 25) was done. There is slight fine grain visible at 100%, which could be easily dealt with. If there were darker areas in the BG then I would probably need to do that.

[Ivan Ellison]

Super quality, see every little feather detail and almost your reflection in her eye. Nice perch and good composition in the frame. No grain showing on my screen, looking good for a 7DII after Xmas.

[arash_hazeghi]

good pose and details, a bit large in the frame for my taste. A moss covered perch would have been even better. I see some noise on the tail.

TFS

[Raybel Robles]

A very sharp image with a great pose. I agree that it is a bit just too large in the frame, a easy fix if you have more canvas to work with.

[Norm Dulak]

Very nice, Diane. The diagonal perch, pose, sharpness and bkg are all very good. But I too would like a little more space around the bird if you can provide it. And if it were mine, I think I'd increase saturation a little also.

[Diane Miller]

This is copped from a horizontal but the top and bottom of the original frame are as presented here. I could go back to a wider crop on the sides but nothing is happening there. I could add canvas top and bottom and probably do a decent job of building more perch, but mostly wanted to illustrate the 7D2's detail rendering at this ISO, so bigger in the frame works better for that.

I need to find a way to get more detail in the BG behind most of the perches. A couple could be moved to a better location, with closer trees.

[Iain Barker]

Great detail on the bird Diane. If there was more detail in the background would that not make the noise more of a problem as it is fine here for me.

[Diane Miller]

I was deleting other shots from this morning and found I had shot a smaller bird on the same perch -- same lighting, focus and exposure -- that had more of the perch at the bottom. So I had to play. Was able to pin-register the perch and the BG was a perfect match. I do like this composition better -- thanks!

I gave it a little more vibrance, although she has subdued colors and contrast under cloudy skies.

[Alan Murphy]

I like the repost as the squarish crop did not feel right to me. Great pose and detail.

[Jim Crosswell]

I like the sharpness, details, exposure, pose and clean BG. Sounds like you are enjoying the new camera. Nice image Diane.

[Julie Brown]

Hi Diane. I am impressed by the large crop and no NR or sharpening at ISO 1600. Nice detail and color. Do you typically apply NR to the bird or only the background?

[Diane Miller]

With a sharp initial capture (the only kind I keep -- and I mean tack sharp at 100%) I leave NR in LR at the default 25 and after processing in PS (if any) I will often do Neat Image or Nik Dfine. Both are very sophisticated and it's been a long time since I felt the need to mask out the bird. Clicking the NR layer on and off, I can see the effect on a smooth or OOF BG but virtually no degradation on a detailed bird. Hard to understand, but I'll take it!

NR and sharpening are both best done at capture!

Of course, resizing for the small JPEG here will cause some softening. I export from LR and it would probably have been more accurate to use the higher level of sharpening.

To better illustrate the original file, here's a 100% crop of the OP. Now you can see the grain and loss of detail it causes. Still no NR or sharpening, and just the Standard sharpening on export from LR. NR can remove the grain but I'm not sure how much you could sharpen without getting it back. The 7D2 has more noise than the 5D3, for sure.

You can see the limited DOF here, with the constraints of low light.

[keith mitchell]

Diane it's been very interesting reading,re noise and removal, your repost looks fine to me .

Keith.

[mohammad reza shahab]

nice pose and BG.good details.

[Frank Schauf]

Beautiful portrait, great details and eye contact.

[Satish Ranadive]

Magnificent image. Beautiful colors and details. I like the composition in the RP.

Regards,
Satish.