I know it's another chickadee, but they're everywhere in winter, they're hand tame, and every once in a while they sit still for more than .34 seconds. The reddish tint to background comes from what I believe is called a Cronus plant, which has red-coloured wood year round. It happened to be behind the tree I was using as a perch by placing some sunflower seeds at its base, so I left it in. I couldn't coax the American Tree Sparrow out from the bushes, but now that I know they're here as well I'll see if I can get them to sit on the same perch.
7d mkII, 500mm f/4 IS. AF in 4 point surround caught the white just under the bird's eye.
1/400 @ f/5.6, ISO 800
ACR/Photoshop. Detail extractor to bring out the blacks of the head and cleaned up a few errant snowflakes.
Very nice, great details on the bird and nice clean perch. I see a bit of noise in the BG, I would run a noise reduction. I also see a straight down line on the upper left corner of the image.
I agree 100% with Raybel. His words were basically exactly my thoughts. Bird and perch look very nice. I would run a round of NR to the background and get the vertical line out. Did you extended canvas?
I did extend canvas a bit, but strangely enough, that line isn't even near the spot where the content-aware fill joined the original. Either way, the line's gone now. Thanks for spotting it. Will definitely NR the BG as well.
Chickadees are so often overlooked and ignored, but they are such fun to photograph...and often save the day when all else is in hiding! I love those background colours.
Thanks all! I've got a repost...ran some NR on the background, fixed the random line, came in just ever so slightly from the right, and added a bit of saturation to the reds. They were definitely a stronger shade of red than what they turned out as on the first try.
Oh my, what a lovely little bird Jake. Your shot does it great justice with a perfect background, nice pose and perch. If you were to play with it again, I'd look at extracting a touch more detail from the highlights around the nape and base of the tail.
Chickadee posing
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