Here's another image I made the other day - same question as the Cardinal I recently posted - does this type of background ruin the picture? (This time I don't think I over-sharpened the bird, but please correct me if I'm wrong). I'm not just trying to make excuses for poor technique, but at this time of year here in Nova Scotia many of the more photogenic birds hang out in thick, non-photogenic backgrounds!
D300, Nikon 80-400VR, handheld, ISO 1600, 1/320 at f/8.0, balanced fill flash EV -0.3 (I set the shutter speed and exposure and let the camera set the ISO, but I felt the addition of flash would improve the brightness of the image). Cropped, Noise-Ninja'd and 1 branch cloned out.
HI Richard - sometimes the BG is what it is - I am seeing some noise in the BG - did yo selectively sharpen your bird only??
Sounds like you are using Auto ISO - Not the greatest option for this sort of thing - IMHO , I really like to be able to control exactly what the camera sis doing and will usually set my ISO manually.
You have a good HA and catchlight in the eye (Thanks to Mr Flash), would run some more noise reduction and the background and possibly crop some from the left had side getting rid of some of the branches there.
Hi Richard Bg works well for me here You did move the bird for the mayor merges. To improve can try selecting the oof bg and do a Gaussean blur over it but keep it sort of natural.
Great point about the auto iso I don't like using it since I rather see what is going on. In this case I'm very glad you went for the high ISO since its much better noise than soft !!! Sharpening do remember to sharpen only the bird and not the bg layer !!!
Richard, I don't mind the BG too much. As Lance said: sometimes the BG is what it is. When you're after the wood warblers especially, you have to be willing to accept some less than optimal BG's (at least that's what I tell myself).
Hi, and thanks. Actually I usually use aperture priority and was experimenting a bit this time. Also,for this image I sharpened only the bird,and used NN selectively on the background-perhaps I didn't do enough noise reduction.
Neat looking bird Richard. I have read also that lens blur does a great job of blurring BG too if you go that way. Don't mind the BG too much just the brownish branch coming out of the left side of the body. Don't see his yellow rump, does he really have one:)?
Last edited by Jackie Schuknecht; 05-05-2009 at 06:00 PM.
Hi Richard,
A nice looking bird...agree with the techs. the brown branch to the left of your bird catches my eye, might consider cloning it out...looking forward to your next one...:cool:
Background again (Yellow-rumped Warbler)
