Mountain Birding 2.0 - Green-tailed Towhee

[Brian Sump]

As mentioned, going after the mountainous birds and heat shimmers suck. I am getting quite a variety and having a blast!

A few things on this one:

1. Same super overcast skies as the Cordilleran Flycatcher
2. I underexposed by about 3/4 stop but think I was able to save it. Battling noise again so a few outer dof hairs may appear soft
3. I had to do a good bit of color re-working but did not add anything artificial on the bird
4. Cleaned up a couple stray needles
5. I know the 4x5 crop is a little unorthodox but minimized the tree trunk. If you hate it, just say so but it does frame the bird quite well IMO. Pretty substantial crop but I feel like IQ just held up
6. Unfortunately branch not parallel with camera, will have to do

D850
600mm+1.4x
HH
ISO 2000
1/250
f5.6

Post in C1 and PS. DNAI 15/15. Reduced brightness on the branch and bkg as well

[William Dickson]

Good details on the bird and looks nice and sharp here. The branch don't bother me as the lower part below the bird looks sharp. A very 'natural' looking image with the needles throughout, and not interfering with the bird. I may clone out the OOF needle above the birds head at the top of the frame.

Will

[John Mack]

Nice of the bird to pose in the open for you. I like the framing and the pine needles. Did you do some eye work here?

[arash_hazeghi]

good HA and details, nice head turn. Folks may not realize but hand holding at 1/250 sec at 840mm to get a sharp file like this takes skill. very good settings BTW, you maxed the ISO as much as the d850 could handle, and managed the slow shutter speed.

I like the natural settings here but wish the OOF lump in the lower left wasn't there, it draws my eyes. inching your foot to the right might have helped? the image has a bit of a magenta cast, magenta casts happen when shooting in the shade and low light, it can be removed in a few seconds by just increasing the color temp

TFS

[Geoffrey Montagu]

What a beautiful bird captured in great light. Like his pose with nice head turn and good eye contact. Lovely background as well. For me the bird is a bit large in the frame. I think the crop is fine, and could see a smaller size posted.


Geoffrey




http://500px.com/geoffreymontagu

[Brian Sump]

good HA and details, nice head turn. Folks may not realize but hand holding at 1/250 sec at 840mm to get a sharp file like this takes skill. very good settings BTW, you maxed the ISO as much as the d850 could handle, and managed the slow shutter speed.

I like the natural settings here but wish the OOF lump in the lower left wasn't there, it draws my eyes. inching your foot to the right might have helped? the image has a bit of a magenta cast, magenta casts happen when shooting in the shade and low light, it can be removed in a few seconds by just increasing the color temp

TFS

Thanks for noticing on the techs.

I was on my toes shooting in a narrow window at super low SS so I was just thankful to grab this relatively shy bird before fleeing. Even you see the full size and how small the bird is its far more evident. Point taken though.

FWIW, I went into color balance in PS and moved the slider between magenta and green several times. This was absolutely the best landing spot for my eyes. One more green point added too much green to an already very green image IMO. I considered the white breast for an additional source of color gauging and it looks nailed to my eyes? The wings just have that tint versus the rest of the image

[Brian Sump]

Nice of the bird to pose in the open for you. I like the framing and the pine needles. Did you do some eye work here?

Thanks John. Just tapped with a 72% opacity sharpen brush sized just bigger than the eyeball, then just a very light touch with 37% sharpen brush just around the eye. What are you seeing?

[Brian Sump]

What a beautiful bird captured in great light. Like his pose with nice head turn and good eye contact. Lovely background as well. For me the bird is a bit large in the frame. I think the crop is fine, and could see a smaller size posted.


Geoffrey




http://500px.com/geoffreymontagu

Thanks for commenting. Frame needs more room to left than right based on the way the bird is looking, and just didn't love the crop going bigger as the tree on the left became a bit overwhelming.

[Brian Sump]

Looser crop for those who wish to see one. Not so bad I guess....

Will, looking at this it feels to me like that needle above helps balance the needles in front of his beak. You agree?

[Jim Crosswell]

I like the OP the best but that is personal preference. I like the pose, sharpness and details. This is a bird I never heard of, TFS.

[arash_hazeghi]

Thanks for noticing on the techs.

I was on my toes shooting in a narrow window at super low SS so I was just thankful to grab this relatively shy bird before fleeing. Even you see the full size and how small the bird is its far more evident. Point taken though.

FWIW, I went into color balance in PS and moved the slider between magenta and green several times. This was absolutely the best landing spot for my eyes. One more green point added too much green to an already very green image IMO. I considered the white breast for an additional source of color gauging and it looks nailed to my eyes? The wings just have that tint versus the rest of the image

did you try adjusting color temp in C1P? The magenta slider in PS isn’t really useful for an image like this

[Brian Sump]

did you try adjusting color temp in C1P? The magenta slider in PS isn’t really useful for an image like this

No. The tint slider in C1 is a M/G adjustment and my understanding is it functions similarly if not the same as the color balance adj in PS.

Regardless, I really don't think there is too much magenta here, at least not on the whole image. I like the color personally.

Will play around with tint slider next time, however C1 usually does a really nice job on Nikon images. When I do a curves adj layer, sampling white, gray and black points using threshold rarely does the tone change in PS.

[arash_hazeghi]

No. The tint slider in C1 is a M/G adjustment and my understanding is it functions similarly if not the same as the color balance adj in PS.

Regardless, I really don't think there is too much magenta here, at least not on the whole image. I like the color personally.

Will play around with tint slider next time, however C1 usually does a really nice job on Nikon images. When I do a curves adj layer, sampling white, gray and black points using threshold rarely does the tone change in PS.

no not the tint slider. just the color temperature. I never touch the tint slider

I took out the magenta cast it was most visible on the perch (purplish hue)

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Brian, nice capture, but agree with Arash on the colour bias. I also again feel, substantial crop and over sharpening isn't helping, in parts it's looking crunchy. I would avoid the DNAI sharpening aspect, or at least try an image without sharpening applied at this particular stage, as it's all adding up.

TFS
Steve

[Brian Sump]

Hi Brian, nice capture, but agree with Arash on the colour bias. I also again feel, substantial crop and over sharpening isn't helping, in parts it's looking crunchy. I would avoid the DNAI sharpening aspect, or at least try an image without sharpening applied at this particular stage, as it's all adding up.

TFS
Steve

Sorry Steve, what areas exactly do you feel are "crunchy"?

This one had a moderate 162/.8 in C1 and only 25/.8 smart sharpen on the resize. I've run files with and without and it's my personal opinion that the 15/15 DNAI will not contribute to a crunchy look if all else is right. I did touch the eye with a bit of selective sharpen, as I told John, so if that's the area I can jive with that. If too large a crop caused it, fine but Im confident in my process now. This was a 45mp file and even with large crop left should have left enough pixels to be fine.

This sharpening stuff has been beaten to a pulp. It's highly subjective, inconsistent at times in the Avian forum, frankly and respectfully, and I'm a little over the "too much" and "not enough" stuff even in the same threads.... but feel free to elaborate and give specific reasoning

Thank you

[Brian Sump]

no not the tint slider. just the color temperature. I never touch the tint slider

I took out the magenta cast it was most visible on the perch (purplish hue)

Thanks. I could see a bit in the branch especially.

Curious was it just a 'feel' thing that there was too much magenta or were you sampling pixel RGB values?

[arash_hazeghi]

I usually just go by eye
when others point out something I don’t see I use RGB and CMYK to find out if there is really a cast

[Brian Sump]

I usually just go by eye
when others point out something I don’t see I use RGB and CMYK to find out if there is really a cast

Ok that's why I'm asking. I saw on your post you screenshot from the PS info panel. After your earlier comments here I went into the TIF and scanned white and some gray with dropper tool, viewing in info panel. What would you expect to see there, consistently higher magenta numbers and/or lower green compared to the other two channels? I saw some higher blues and cyan in places but wasn't seeing super high magenta

EDIT: I realized that my curves and color balance layers were ONLY above the bird layer and applied just there. Hence, why you would see the color cast on the branches.

Good catch, I did miss them. Also probably a valid reason why I landed on the bird color I did and why you saw it primarily on the trees.

[Volkan Akgul]

Hi Brain, nature frame very good photo.