Nelson's sparrow

[Richard Stern]

They rarely perch in the open, but stay in long grass in salt marsh habitat. Nikon D7100, 300 f4-PF--VR and 1.4x TC. 1/1250, f8.0, ISo560, hand-held. Processed in LR5.7. Any comments gratefully received.

Richard

[Tim Foltz]

Hi Richard, there's something strange going on here, the grasses are smooth and clean but the bird is very grainy.
A bit over processed I think, try it again with the same processing as the BG.

-Tim

[kevin Hice]

Yes Richard nice capture. I also have something that looks like the bird has lots of noise or sharpened too much.

[Warren Spreng]

I'm with Tim on this one, hard to figure out why the grasses are so sharp and the bird almost looks posterized, but the legs look fine. Maybe trying to bring out some shadowed areas on the bird too aggressively?

[arash_hazeghi]

the poor IQ really holds this one back. was it too much of a crop? please post the RAW capture so folks can help you

[Richard Stern]

Thank for the crits. I think I can self- diagnose the problem - too heavy a crop, and then too much sharpening of the bird. With hindsight I probably shouldn't have put this here, but anyway, as suggested, here's the raw file - simply downsized to 1400px and 400k for posting here - no other post-processing.

Richard

[Glennie Passier]

This is exactly why you should put this image here. I believe the crop is just too big. This could be a nice environmental image if you cropped a little more sympathetically and left some of those lovely arching grasses in. It will still be a fairly big crop, but the IQ may be better. I like the natural colours and the unique pose of the bird.

Keep them coming!

[arash_hazeghi]

Hi Richard
you are right. The massive crop and sharpening is the cause for the poor IQ. Unfortunately I don't think you can salvage this file. Better luck next time

[Warren Spreng]

This is exactly why you should put this image here. I believe the crop is just too big. This could be a nice environmental image if you cropped a little more sympathetically and left some of those lovely arching grasses in. It will still be a fairly big crop, but the IQ may be better. I like the natural colours and the unique pose of the bird.

Keep them coming!

I agree with Glennie, posting this as a scene rather than on the bird could work nicely, the bird looks fine here and gives one a great perspective as to where it normally would be found.