Yellow warbler, another try

[Ben Egbert]

For those who saw my previous shot, this one is a different pose. The tail is really clear on this one, but the pose is not as good, which is why I submitted the other image first. I did clone out the OOF leaf and some branches. I made sure that no channels are blown on this image after the sRGB and jpg conversion. I would need to lighten it up to print it.

I know that some would suggest a faster ISO but I started this series at ISO800 which is my BIF preset, and while moving the tripod for a better shot, and dialing down ISO on the fly I overshot a bit. He was gone before I could refine these settings. I find 1/500 from a tripod usually fast enough. The best settings for this shot would probably have been ISO200 and f5.6. The 500f4+1.4x are good wide open once they have been micro adjusted.

50D, 500 f4+1.4x, f7.1 1/500sec ISO100

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Ben

Not bad reasoning for the ISO settings. I usually like to have a little safety margin and try to shoot at a higher ISO .. for flight do try to have over 1600 is possible.

Agree on the image selection, the other had a better head angle and overall feel. Do like the tail area separation !!!

[Gus Cobos]

Hi Ben,
I agree with Mr. Forns on the techs. I might add that you might want to tone down the yellows just a tad...looking forward to your next one...:cool:

[Ben Egbert]

Hi Ben

Not bad reasoning for the ISO settings. I usually like to have a little safety margin and try to shoot at a higher ISO .. for flight do try to have over 1600 is possible.

Agree on the image selection, the other had a better head angle and overall feel. Do like the tail area separation !!!

I have not been able to fix the noise in an ISO1600 50D shot without losing too much detail. Especially with the amount of cropping I do. Also, it is usually not too hard to get into the 1/1250 shutter speed range at ISO800. I can usually hand hold at this shutter speed. But then that was my assessment before coming here. I may be wrong, and I am eager to learn :)

I have decided however that I am primarily a stationary bird guy.

[Ben Egbert]

Hi Ben,
I agree with Mr. Forns on the techs. I might add that you might want to tone down the yellows just a tad...looking forward to your next one...:cool:

Ok, getting used to this forum. I have posted stuff with magenta cast and blown out yellows. So I am just finding my eye with respect to the forum. That's why I am here.

How would you do this? I assume desaturate yellow? I am wondering if I ought to brighten my monitor a bit. I went from 80 to 110 cd/mm^2. Perhaps 120? Or is this more than brightness?

The image is still a bit dark on my monitor at current settings.

[Lance Peters]

Hi BEN - I prefer the first one as well - better HA.
Do you have your monitor colour balanced - if not thats were I would start.
Looks plent bright on my screen - even with the yellows desaturated a bit.

Keep them coming :)

[Ben Egbert]

Hi BEN - I prefer the first one as well - better HA.
Do you have your monitor colour balanced - if not thats were I would start.
Looks plent bright on my screen - even with the yellows desaturated a bit.

Keep them coming :)

Thanks for feedback. My monitor is a NEC 2690WUXi, a high end LCD. I have hardware level calibration via NEC Spectraview. It is a wide gamut monitor, and dislpays most of the aRGB gamut. For prints, I use d50, 80CD/mm^2. For web preparation, I use d65, 110cd/mm^2, and 2.2 gama. I suspect most out of the box LCD's are between 150 and 180 on brightness. I work in a room with very low light.

One large problem with monitor calibration is that there are too many choices, especially for brightness. It took me a year to figure out how to match my printer.

I suspect the problem in this case however is that I am an old Kodachrome shooter and like my highly saturated colors.


Here is a desaturated version, I droped yellow 10 each sat and lightness and the faded 50%. Question, what do you look for to determine when it is too saturated? Or is this just a subjective learned judgement?