Juvenile American Dipper Head Portrait

[Krishna Prasad kotti]

Hi All,

This image was taken Saint Mary falls, Glacier National Park Montana.

After returning from hiking the Virginia Falls we stopped at Saint Mary falls where I saw this American Dipper Practicing Dipping.

I was able to get close and take this image.


Nikon D500, 300mm f/4 +1.7x TCII
ISO 2500 , f/8, 1/250 sec
Handheld.

This is image was not cropped.

Click to watch full screen.

Post Processing:-

Noise Reduction using Neat Image
Lightroom and Photoshop

Let me know your comments and critiques.

Thanks
Krishna

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Krishna, lovely detail around the eye and beak, and thats a killer BG. As there is too much OOF lower body due to lack of DOF, I would maybe take some off the bottom of the image.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Awesome portrait with a perfectly balanced comp. Good call stopping down for the close up - that is one of the rare times I do so for bird photography. Still a bit of oof area at bottom as Stu mentions, but not an image wrecker. The image very sharp, actually perhaps even a touch too sharp as posted, with some of the fine details having that "crunchy" look to them. That was a super opportunity for you!

[Krishna Prasad kotti]

Thank you all for the comments.

As the image was un cropped version, I guess we can crop the OOF lower part but I kind of liked it that way.

I tried not to over-sharpen the image, if it is too sharp then I can tone it down.

But how to know that image is over sharp, any pointers would really help ?

[Mike Singh]

Hi Krishna
Nice capture. I like the close up frame, sharp eye and silky background. I judge the amount of sharpening by how it looks. You can tell if it looks to crunchy if over done. Did you do any contrast or clarity adjustments on the bird?

Mike

[Krishna Prasad kotti]

Hi Mike,

For me it looked ok which is why I wanted to understand why it looks crunchy for other folks...

Below are my Lightroom Adjustments

[Mike Singh]

Hi Krishna
Did you use the adjustment brush on the bird? What were your adjustments in your Details panel? Try reducing the clarity?

[arash_hazeghi]

excellent headshot Krishna, you are getting a good hang of processing. sharpness looks great from where I am sitting, the BG is clean and the light angle is perfect

well done

[Isaac Grant]

Wow what a great portrait. Very well done. Amazing that you were able to get that close. Details look perfect to me and I love the chocolate background. Congrats.