one more siskin

[John Chardine]

Pine Siskins and Common Redpolls have moved south where the cameras are so we are seeing quite a few of these wonderful birds lately. Undeterred, I offer up another rendition for your review.

This image was made at my back yard feeder station at Sackville, New Brunswick using my back room as a blind. This works great so long as you can ensure that the room is cold and there are no shimmers in front of the lens.

Nothing much done to this one but a crop, BG NR, and sharpen. The BG is a Jack Pine trunk. Hope you like it.

Canon EOS 50D, 500/4
capture date: Saturday, 24 January, 2009 111 AM
exposure program: Aperture Priority
ISO speed: 800
shutter speed: 1/320
aperture: f4.0
exposure bias: +0.0
metering: Pattern
flash: OFF

[ChasMcRae]

I love the feather detail you preserved and the bright realistic rendition of the bird. Also very clean bird and beak.
A shame the jack pine was not completely behind the bird acting as BG for the whole body and tail.
Chas.

[Tony Whitehead]

Lovely colours and sharpness, John. I would move some of the texture of the BG tree into the smooth space on the right. Clone stamp in darken mode after protecting the bird with a QM should work OK.

[Art Kornienko]

Killer lighting and detail, great eye contact, like Charles says, a shame Jack Pine was not a bit more to the right.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Glad you can also take advantage of these winter finches. Sharpness and exposure look great. A good point made of the OOF trunk not occupying the full BG. For such a small bird I'm finding taht it is a bit big in the frame (I've always thought that smaller birds looked better with more breathing room composition-wise).

[John Chardine]

Thanks for all the useful comments. I use the Ps Clone tool quite a bit and never noticed the Mode option, top left- thanks Tony! I'll try it on the right of the image. Having said this, so long as the BG is not too distracting I like to leave things alone as much as possible. I think sometimes we have to step back from what we do and remember that birds are wild animals that live in wild, unruly habitats. I don't think we want to be producing images of wild animals in the field that look like they were done in a studio with one of those blotchy back-cloths all the time. Daniel's comment about room is interesting. So long as there is enough room around the subject, I think that how much more you give it is a matter of personal taste. Because they are small, small birds don't take up much of our visual field of view with the naked eye, but photography allows a closer look, almost akin to macro photography. This is why I like to go in close if possible. Anyway, good discussion!

[Arthur Morris]

Hey, I like this a lot, the soft light and the BKGR. You should have moved the jack pine a half a foot to the right.... While it is true that birds often live in cluttered places one of the jobs of a good nature photographer (in my opinion and John Shaw's as well) is to make order out of chaos. I too would like to see a bit more room for the little birdie.

[John Chardine]

Hey, I like this a lot, the soft light and the BKGR. You should have moved the jack pine a half a foot to the right.... While it is true that birds often live in cluttered places one of the jobs of a good nature photographer (in my opinion and John Shaw's as well) is to make order out of chaos. I too would like to see a bit more room for the little birdie.

I needed someone to verbalise it. Thanks Artie.