Eastern Yellow Robin

[Glenn Pure]

An immature robin taken a few years ago with my old camera and lens. I had a shot with the bird's head neutral and one eye towards me but I liked this head angle and pose better. I've cloned out a twig on the right of the frame. Taken near Eden on the south coast of New South Wales.

Technical: Canon 700 D with EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM (Mark I) at 400mm handheld. Aperture priority 1/100 sec, f8, ISO 800. Processed in Canon DPP 4 (digital lens optimiser @ 50, sharpness = 3, crop, lighting adjustments, default NR) then exported 16 bit TIFF to Photoshop Elements with Neat Image NR plugin. Very light NR applied to birds in focus and stronger NR to background. Shadows lifted selectively on bird and midtone contrast added. Additional shadow lift on eye. Sharpened in PSE (Sharpness tool 0.3 pixels @ 50%) after final size reduction.

[keith mitchell]

Glen it's amazing how you have achieved such good detail and sharpness at such a low shutter speed ,very well done.

[John Mack]

Nice detail on the bird wish the head wasn't so turned away.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Glenn, love the inquisitive pose, and I do like how the yellows and Greys go so well together. Good DOF on the body, and Im fine that the tail falls away. Some may say the perch is too large, but we have to take them where they decide to perch.

[annmpacheco]

I also like the slanted HA and the fluffiness on this little one. super job with the ss, well done!, love the little lone toenail on the branch.

[Glenn Pure]

Thank you Keith, John, Stu and Ann. As mentioned in OP, I did find the head angle/gaze more interesting in this shot than alternative frames I had with head side on to camera. As for low SS, in my experience, this isn't often a problem but the subject has to be relatively still and a higher reject rate can happen. Image stabilisers are so good now they allow low shutter speeds while still giving good keep rates.

[keith mitchell]

Thanks for your reply re shutter speeds it's a thing I give a lot of thought.

Keith.