Male Northern Cardinal feeding a juvenile Fledgling

[Krishna Prasad kotti]

Hi All,

I took this shot at my Bird Feeder setup in my Balcony. It was about a month back when I set up this feeder for birds as I saw Cardinal, Mocking birds, Blue Jays and Doves. This feeder was set up (due to my persistence) so that my wife can observer the birds closer. We always watch birds through out holes from our doors which kind acts as blinds.

Initially we had Mocking birds and Blue Jays were our regular visitors. Recently Northern Cardinals started visiting our feeder. About couple of weeks back we heard different chipping sound and found that Cardinal pair brought their Juvenile along with them. Initially only 1 now we can see all the 3 Juveniles.

So as soon as I heard the sounds, I went toward the stairs and quick took some shots. I absolutely love this shot. I just got the lens from Sigma after repairs and will Fine Tune it this week.

Let me know your comments.

Nikon D500
Sigma 150-600mm Sports f5/6.3
ISO 3200, f/6.3, 1/320 sec handheld.

Post processing

Lightroom:-

• Cropping
• Exposure :- 0.45
• Shadows :- +5
• Whites :- +17
• Blacks :- 5
• Clarity :- 25
• Vibrance :- 30
• Noise reduction
• Sharpening

Photoshop Elements:-

• Cloning
• Level
• Brightness Adjustment

Nik Dfine2:-

• Manual Selective - Noise Reduction

Thanks
Krishna

[Keith Swindell]

Nice image, but the lighting looks a little flat due to the backlighting to me. Have you tried putting a piece of white paper or plastic on your door to kick some light back onto the birds when they are at the feeder?

[Krishna Prasad kotti]

Nice image, but the lighting looks a little flat due to the backlighting to me. Have you tried putting a piece of white paper or plastic on your door to kick some light back onto the birds when they are at the feeder?

Thank you for idea. This was my first shot of these birds. I am sure they will continue to visit me multiple times. I am going to try using fill flash to see if I can lighten them up. In that way I think I can lower the ISO as well.

Thanks
Krishna

[Diane Miller]

A great find -- sounds like you have great opportunities! Keep at it!

I'm rushed for time here, so just some quick comments.

The image is too tight on the right and has too much empty space on the left.

Put up a staging branch were they might park instead on on the feeder.

The image looks like a lot of NR. Why did you go negative with clarity? I would never recommend that.

I would never sharpen beyond the default in LR, nor do NR except in an emergency.

Nik can be good but look at 100% and if it softens the subject, don't do it.

Combining NR and sharpening just isn't good. The only way to get a sharp image is to shoot it sharp. Look at everything at 1:1 in LR. Use a sturdy tripod and good bracing technique. Sounds like you could leave one set up aimed at the feeder -- or at a staging branch.

Hope to see you working these birds and technique!

[Krishna Prasad kotti]

Hi Diane,

Thank you for the feedback. I did not apply negative clarity, Clarity was +25.

I think should have used a tripod for this shot. I did not plan for this one as it was impromptu shot take while I saw the birds. I will plan better.

For Nik I manually did noise reduction on the background not sure why it applied on the bird as well. Going forward I will deselect the bird and try to apply for noise reduction on the background.

I am also looking at Neat Image, it seems to be good...

I will try to see if I can get some more shots using Tripod next time.

Thanks
Krishna

[Diane Miller]

With Nik Dfine I rarely need to mask out the bird -- it is very clever to reduce noise in OOF areas and not make a mess of fine detail. But it makes a new layer so just add a layer mask and mask out the bird if necessary. Easy way is to select it with the Quick Select tool and with the selection in place add a mask with the icon at the bottom of the layers palette. No need to be too precise about edges for most NR. You can modify the mask as needed with the brush tool.