Goldfinch on a branch

[Ben Egbert]

This is a backyard shot of a goldfinch that feeds at my thistle sock.

Just keeping my hand in while I read the Art of bird photography II (up to page 170 now) and recover from a cold.

Canon 50D, 500f4 at f5, ISO320, 1/320 second. Tripod and sidekick. I don't see any obvious problems.

[Tony Whitehead]

Get well soon, Ben. Nice pose, head angle and soft light. Light angle not ideal. Image looks a little soft - not sure if this is a bit of camera shake at 1/320 or whether some more sharpening for web presentation may resolve it.

[Ben Egbert]

Get well soon, Ben. Nice pose, head angle and soft light. Light angle not ideal. Image looks a little soft - not sure if this is a bit of camera shake at 1/320 or whether some more sharpening for web presentation may resolve it.

Thanks for your reply. I never noticed it was soft. This is a south facing location, so the best light is generally when there is little of it. I wonder if lack of contrast dues to light angle is the softness issue?

I use Pixel Genius sharpening in 3 stages, (capture, creative and output) and generally the same for all images from the same camera. Sometimes I add a haze brush to add contrast, might work here.

[Geraldo Hofmann]

Yepp get well soon,... I would go for selective sharpening the head area. It looks like focus is better on the belly and on the perch.
Geraldo

[Ben Egbert]

Quick fix

I brushed in some fine edge sharpening to the head. I usually don’t do this because I never know when to stop. The original softness was probably because I used NR. I thought about reposting the image without NR, but I hate noise more than softeness.

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

With such great looking species, you could use a thinner perch. Repost is an improvement. I would also suggest to maintain the 3:2 ratio. BG is great.

[arash_hazeghi]

Nice HA, EXP, BG and colors. repost is an improvement and I would also take out the short twig to the right of the bird.

[Geraldo Hofmann]

Looks better now.
Geraldo

[Ben Egbert]

With such great looking species, you could use a thinner perch. Repost is an improvement. I would also suggest to maintain the 3:2 ratio. BG is great.

Thanks, I will try a 3:2 version. This is a real limb on a real tree. I do have some artificial perches, but they do like the natural ones as well.

[Ben Egbert]

Nice HA, EXP, BG and colors. repost is an improvement and I would also take out the short twig to the right of the bird.

Thanks for feedback on the redo. I need to finish the CD and learn more about cloning. I can do it now, but it won't look natural at the cut.

[Tony Whitehead]

Repost is a good improvement, Ben.