Mistle thrush and rowan berries

[Mike Hitchen]

A farm in our area has set up some great hides for photographing woodland birds - there are plenty of feeders with branches around for the birds to perch while they wait their turn. There are also plenty of berry bushes to take them through the winter months

Canon 7D2, 400mm DOii. 4,000 ISO, 1/1250 f5.6.
Overexposed 1 stop and recovered in post, cropped about 25%.

[Mike Hitchen]

I posted that and thought it might have a blue cast to it so I adjusted the white balance, with a dropper taken on the beak (about 61 on the histogram) - this increased the colour temp from from 4600 to 5550.
The effect seems subtle - or is this barking up the wrong tree? Any comments appreciated.
FYI - the picture was taken mid afternoon on a clear, mild winter's day and the lighting at the time I would expect a warm feel to it.

[William Dickson]

Hi Mike, I love the HA with the open bill grabbing at the berry. Well done, nicely timed. Very nice detail on the head and the berries. The leaves and twigs look ok on the LHS, the OOF twigs on the RHS distract my attention from the subject a little. Nicely coloured BG. I think 6.3 or even 7.1 would have been better as you had plenty SS. The repost looks to have a yellow cast on my monitor. The original looks ok

Will

[keith mitchell]

Mike I see the blue cast that you refer too,and must say I like the repost better with a lot warmer look,I always find these Thrushes difficult so well done getting this nice shot.Hope the Berries last out it is forecasting some cold weather for the UK.

Keith.

[annmpacheco]

Hi Mike,
I like the repost, the blue color cast removed really pops the image. However, your noise increased and is more noticeable on the twigs and intersecting upper right sky twigs, green BG... Id suggest another round of NR and maybe smoothing out some of the stronger two lines and burning the brightest areas amongst the twigs... Very nice feeding and the berries really add a great color and texture... TFS

[Mike Hitchen]

Thank you all for your comments.
- annmpacheco - there was some incomplete masking there (I had used the adjustment brush in LR) to reduce the brightness so I filled in the speckled gaps in the mask and it looks much better
- William - having cropped the image I had some space to play around with so I reframed to reduce the different colour and textures on the right. I don't normally go for square format so it was one or the other and a question of where I put the 'dead space' and even though I slightly prefer the more central positioning of the OP, I think this gives a more uniform feel to the image

[Isaac Grant]

I really like the feeding pose and the details on the face. Berries are nice as well. I think you need to find a middle between the white balance of the 2 posts. Original looks too cold to me and the repost looks like it has a yellow cast as William states. The background to the right of the bird is at that distance where it creates very unflattering bokeh. Cutting some of the right off helps a bit but I think it is too distracting to be a keeper. Would be ideal to have that sweet yellow tone as your only background.

[Mike Poole]

A nice feeding pose Mike, and very good IQ for ISO 4000. Good control of your setting and good use of ETTR.

I'd try something in between the 2 as far as WB goes. I also think the right side of the shot needed some extra NR. Better with the RAW, but something along these lines.



Mike