Pine Warbler
Canon 7D Mark 11
Canon 300 2.8 II
f4, 1/1250, ISO 800.
Tweaked in LR and PSCC.
An interesting image in lovely, soft light. The perch is very nice -- would be even better if he was on the very top but I wouldn't call this pose flawed, by any means. The classic preference would be for more head turn, but you got an interesting pose with the open beak, and got a decent depth of field, which is usually the issue with a straight-on view such s this. I'm surprised f/4 gave you this much.
The crop (or composition if it wasn't a crop) feels nicely balanced. I might consider a bit more off the top. A few minor thoughts -- I increased the brightness just a little with a Curves and brought down the darks a bit. There is a lot of leeway on where you want the contrast for a soft subject, and this one was OK for me as presented -- just saw an opportunity to consider a slight tweak. There is just a slight magenta cast -- I made another Curves and used the gray eyedropper to click the area to the right of the bird's head. Also had a quick go at reducing the OOF branch on the left side. The changes except for the cloning were minor -- you might need to stack both and click back and forth to see much difference.
Working on the JPEG has brought out noise and posterization in the BG -- that won't happen with a 16-bit PS file.
You have an excellent lens. Look forward to seeing more!
Last edited by Diane Miller; 03-09-2016 at 01:55 PM.
I think the close up is very nice. As Diane said, the perch is not ideal, especially since it is cutting so much into the bird. I think the image is a bit flat. To my eye it could use a bit of contrast to really make the bird stand out from the background. I would also do a round of noise reduction to the background which will make the bird stand out even more. The out of focus branch on the left side is a bit distracting. Would love to see a version with those changes and the branch cloned out.
I would take Diane's repost, but crop it just below that dark 'knot'. This way the perch won't be as large
as the bird, then maybe add just a little more to the top.
Then take that part of the perch that's sticking out across the body and clone it out with the birds
feather.
If you're really feeling dangerous, place the background on a different layer. Then in Photoshop, using
the Color Balance sliders, play with them and come up with different colors. This way the bird won't
disappear into the background.
Doug
Thanks for the pointers, I had waited for over an hour and this was the best I got.I do however like your version over mine. Thanks.for the help, as always it appreciated.
Originally Posted by Diane Miller
An interesting image in lovely, soft light. The perch is very nice -- would be even better if he was on the very top but I wouldn't call this pose flawed, by any means. The classic preference would be for more head turn, but you got an interesting pose with the open beak, and got a decent depth of field, which is usually the issue with a straight-on view such s this. I'm surprised f/4 gave you this much.
The crop (or composition if it wasn't a crop) feels nicely balanced. I might consider a bit more off the top. A few minor thoughts -- I increased the brightness just a little with a Curves and brought down the darks a bit. There is a lot of leeway on where you want the contrast for a soft subject, and this one was OK for me as presented -- just saw an opportunity to consider a slight tweak. There is just a slight magenta cast -- I made another Curves and used the gray eyedropper to click the area to the right of the bird's head. Also had a quick go at reducing the OOF branch on the left side. The changes except for the cloning were minor -- you might need to stack both and click back and forth to see much difference.
Working on the JPEG has brought out noise and posterization in the BG -- that won't happen with a 16-bit PS file.
You have an excellent lens. Look forward to seeing more!
Thanks for the suggestions, I will play with the layer and back ground, but at this point Im still in Photoshop 101 mode.
I thought about going to f5.6 but didn't want to push past the iso 800, the bird presented itself at a bit of a bad angle but in hindsight maybe i could have shot it at 1/600.
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