Red-winged Blackbird calling

[Warren Spreng]

I love the sound of these as it always heralds summer to me. I finally caught one on a fairly clean perch yelling his heart out and caught this one. The lighting was pretty harsh so worked with it as best I could. I also had to clone out two foreground OOF branches, one of which cut across his forward leg and arched in front of his face and then a heavier one that cut across his tail and over top his head! If only I could have trimmed the brush he was in before I shot! Other than that, I raised shadows in LR and a very mild sharpening in PS CC. Canon T3i, Tamron 150 - 600mm, 600mm, f/6.3, 1/2500, ISO 800 hand held, AF

Interested in hearing about settings with sun at a low angle such as this (10:00 AM EST), sun at my back, no clouds.

[Diane Miller]

Excellent! I would never know you had cloned anything. Great detail in the dark feathers -- not easy to do. The settings look good to me. Full sun can be difficult, often resulting in iridescence that can almost resemble noise on many birds, but this one looks fine. You might compare a slight tweak to a warmer Temp, just to see if you prefer it, but I don't think there is anything unnatural about this choice.

My thinking on settings is usually what DOF (aperture) do I need, then what SS, which determines the ISO. Or sometimes, what ISO will give good quality, therefore what SS can I get. In that case I ask myself if I can handhold that SS. Shooting a burst will often yield one that's sharper, either because camera shake is at the brief pause at the top or bottom of a shake, or because the AF locked on a bit better if I'm in AI Servo.

[Warren Spreng]

Excellent! I would never know you had cloned anything. Great detail in the dark feathers -- not easy to do. The settings look good to me. Full sun can be difficult, often resulting in iridescence that can almost resemble noise on many birds, but this one looks fine. You might compare a slight tweak to a warmer Temp, just to see if you prefer it, but I don't think there is anything unnatural about this choice.

My thinking on settings is usually what DOF (aperture) do I need, then what SS, which determines the ISO. Or sometimes, what ISO will give good quality, therefore what SS can I get. In that case I ask myself if I can handhold that SS. Shooting a burst will often yield one that's sharper, either because camera shake is at the brief pause at the top or bottom of a shake, or because the AF locked on a bit better if I'm in AI Servo.

Thanks for the comments Diane! I was looking at some of that iridescence as noise but now realize it for what it is, thanks for pointing that out! What you described for settings is exactly my procedure so thanks for confirming that I am on the right track!

[Diane Miller]

Of course, there's no proof I'm on the right track... Luck is my best strategy.

[Warren Spreng]

Of course, there's no proof I'm on the right track... Luck is my best strategy.

That's great!😆