Eurasian siskin

[Tomasz Zawadzki]

Taken with:
Canon EOS 5D Mark IV
EF600mm f/4L IS II USM
ƒ/7.1
1/200
ISO 800

[Randy Stout]

Tomasz:

Handsome bird, soft light, good catchlight, well exposed. I find it so easy to overexpose yellows. Nice composition.

The perch has lots of interesting detail as well.

I wonder a bit about the 'balance' of bird vs. perch, ie. the perch is fairly dominant in the scene, with all the hanging components. I will be interested in the thoughts of others.

Thank you for sharing

Randy

[Simon Davis]

The siskin stands out well against the background. I don't mind the perch - the colours are quite muted compared to the siskin so it doesn't detract too much for me.

[Noel Heustis]

Tomasz, I love the beautiful shades of brown in the BG. As Randy pointed out, the perch seems a little more dominant than in a lot of shots, but I like it. Thanks for sharing.

[Isaac Grant]

I think the bird looks super cool against that brown background. I find it to be a really interesting perch as well. The bird does seem a touch soft to me. Is it correct that your shutter speed was 1/200? Why so slow? Also I see some odd dark spots all over the frame, but they are more concentrated on the top. Is that just your sensor being really dirty or some sort of posterization?

[Tomasz Zawadzki]

Thanks. 1/200 because i needed low ISO as with ISO 1600 the noise is bad against that dark brown. Shot taken in the woods so not that lot of light ant the weather wasn't perfect.
I think there is some posterization visible, it would be more visible on higher ISO.

[Isaac Grant]

Tomaz I am a little confused about 2 things. You shot this at ISO 800, not 1600. You could certainly push the 5d4 to 1600 or higher if you needed to and with proper noise reduction and processing had a super clean and sharp file. That would have gotten you much more shutter speed and a sharper file. Also you would not get posterization from higher ISO's. Could you explain what you mean.

[Paul Burdett]

Tomasz..I really like this image. The background bokeh and colouring compliment the bird. To me the bird is not too soft...some photos I've seen here seem over sharpened (my last post included...lol) I don't mind the perch either...it shows the bird in it's natural surroundings, but I can understand others finding it a little distracting...each to their own I guess. I don't always feel that a bird needs to be isolated.

[Tomasz Zawadzki]

Yes. I know 5D IV can be pushed to 1600 and above and usually i rarely shoot below 1600.
But in this place when i shoot with 1600 the noise at 1600 is not nice for my personal taste - maybe it's that dark brown background.
I mean in this particular area i find if a bit hard to clear the noise at 1600 or higher and that is from previous sessions when i shoot at 1600.

And for posterization from my experience images tend to suffer with high ISO if ISO is removed completely especially if there is lot of gradients.

[arash_hazeghi]

Hi Tomasz, nice perch and design. I like the BG too. I am with Issac re. ISO1600 is a piece of cake for 5D4 you can even pull up the shadows and noise is not a problem. what software do you use for converting your RAW files?

TFS

[Tomasz Zawadzki]

I am using ACR and then Topaz to remove the noise. And usually i shoot at 1600 and more without a problem and the noise in the final files doesn't bother me. I had good results at ISO 3200.
But with that dark brown background (in the place where i shoot now) i tend to have the problem with the ISO.
I don't like that noise at high ISO from those sessions. So that is why i wanted to check how it's gonna look at lower ISO. It was an experiment more than anything else and more often than not i am able to get sharp pictures at 1/200 of a bird that is not moving.
But for sure 1/400 would help in getting it sharper in this case so i should have dialed higher ISO and the image wouldn't suffer a lot with the additional noise indeed.

[arash_hazeghi]

You can greatly benefit from DPP4 for RAW conversion

[Tomasz Zawadzki]

Thanks Arash i will give it a try