Northern Parula

[Bill Dix]

Another warbler species, from Magee Marsh last month.

D7200, 500f4 + 1.4 TC, ISO 1250, 1/1000s @ f/7.1 manual, fill @ -2.3.

[arash_hazeghi]

I like the pose and can live with the perch but I wish you had a better BG here, there is some noise on the head looks like you had to sharpen that area

TFS

[gail bisson]

Hi Bill,
This is my favorite warbler but...
I am not loving this image.
The OOF yellow leaf is distracting and the white high key BG is not appealing to me.
It is hard to pull off a shaded bird in foliage against a bright area- even with fill flash.
Magee looks like a great place for warblers. I have enjoyed your "series' from Magee.
Gail

[Geoffrey Montagu]

Bill, this is a fine looking bird with a great pose, but the head above the eye does seem a tad noisy. Do you have a bit more latitude in the eye to bring more detail out?


Geoffrey

[Bill Dix]

Thanks guys.

Gail, I'm sorry to spoil your favorite warbler. He's one of my favorites too. But this one just didn't want to give me a good look in a better location. I'll admit I had my doubts about this image, but in my eagerness to post as many separate warbler species as possible I guess I hoped someone might find some redeeming quality to it.

Geoffrey, I could probably get a bit more detail around the eye, but the issues go deeper than that. I agree with Arash that the head is not the sharpest point of focus and thus my efforts to sharpen it created some noise. But to my eye, the fine feather detail on the entire bird seems a bit coarse. I'm not sure why. I could easily take out the blue and yellow features in the bg, but I don't think I can fix the shortcomings in the bird.

Thanks for commenting.

[arash_hazeghi]

Hi Bill, I don't think the RAW was sharp here, and when the RAW isn't tack sharp (maybe because of extreme backlit situations) no amount of sharpening will save the file unfortunately.

[Bill Dix]

Thanks Arash. I agree. Luckily I have better images of this species.