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David...
What were the settings for this? What camera and lens?
Catching the action was nice, unfortunately you were to close
by cutting off the bird on the right.
The wing position on the first bird is perfect and I love the
expression on the second.
If you wanted to save it, put the birds on
their own layer and apply a heavy dose of noise reduction on
the background due to the high digital noise.
Doug
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D800, 1/800 sec, 5.6, 480mm (Nikon 200-500), ISO 5000. I shot in the early morning, so the colors are somewhat muted. The feet of the right bird were cut off because he's standing knee-deep (and tail-deep) in a mountain of suet. If I decide to print it large, I'll definitely try to minimize the effect of the noise.
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David: I wish the background could have been a different color, because to me it's competing with those stunning-nice colors on the bird. You said you shot early morning, so maybe a higher SS was not an option, but would have been interesting to see what the wings would have looked like if completely frozen. That said, I do like the motion in this one as the root of the wings seem in focus and it gradually blurs (with the wing in motion) all the way to the tips.
Hope you get some more opportunities with these guys -- would like to see then with a little more light.
AP
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That's my chocolate-colored back fence -- I don't like it either, but it came with the house. The green blur is a mesquite branch hanging over the fence. Perhaps when I find the motivation/time I'll change the brown to a lighter color.
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A light-colored bird might really pop against that background ...... hope you get some to stop by and photo!!
AP
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As mentioned, it isn't good to have one of the birds cut in two. It is Murphy striking again that a potentially great pose is spoiled by artificial ingredients. The only way to salvage this compositionally is to add more canvas on the right and clone in a bush or the like to cover the suet. Allow enough added canvas at the bottom to give room for the virtual feet.
Do you have perches set up where the birds will sometimes pose on the way to a feeder?
But the more major issue for me is the noise and over-saturated colors. The fence color isn't bad but the birds are quite overdone. I wouldn't expect that much noise from that camera unless the image was very underexposed and brought up in post. Proper exposure is very important in the original capture. For meaningful critique always give information on the initial appearance and processing. Is your monitor calibrated? The image is still very underexposed -- the histogram has all the tonal range in the left third.
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Hi David,are you in blighty? I only ask because i'm trying to get a handle on whether this is the bird I know reasonably well. i'm just learning David so can't really add much the the far more experienced photographers whom have already posted. I really like this the action captured and the wing position is lovely. I think you have huge potential David can't wait to see more from you cheers for sharing this,it's not only been educational for me but also a joy to view
take care
stu
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Hi Stuart. No, I'm in Texas. In 1890-91, the Shakespeare Society in New York City had the bright idea to transport all the birds mentioned in Shakespeare's writings to the US -- now European Starlings are all over North America. I'm not a birder -- I just sit in my back yard in the morning and shoot whatever flies by.
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