Black-Capped Chickadee

[Jeff Sorbie]

A700+Sigma 120-400mm, 230mm, 1/1500, f/5.6, ISO 640, LR Adjustments & Cropped

Fletcher Wildlife Garden, Ottawa, Ontario.

[Arthur Morris]

Loverly COMP and I like the setting. The head is slightly turned away, the bird's feathers seem to be lacking fine detail, and the BKGR is way-noisy.

Thanks a ton BTW for your membership support.

[Randy Stout]

Jeff:

Artie hit the main points. The image does seem pretty noisy in the background. I am not familiar enough with this camera to know if this is typical for this ISO, or if it was aggravated in post, by having to bring up the exposure, or some other adjustments.

The bird itself is well exposed, and I too like the comp. I might consider very lightly toning down the brightness of some of the background areas, so they don't compete so much with the bird. Won't take much to get a better balance of subject/background.

Cheers

Randy

[Jeff Sorbie]

Thanks Artie & Randy.I will start passing these htrough a noise reduction cycle. I have one question...How do I get more detail in the feather?. I have yet to master Manual Mode shooting and I wonder if that would help...shooting @ f/9 or f/11 in Manual Mode and selecting the fastest Shutter Speed possible? I shoot handheld also so maybe its not using a tripod that is causing the lack of detail??? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[Randy Stout]

Jeff:

Certainly, a tripod can be a big help for more detail when pushing the exposure envelope. It becomes much less critical if you have enough light. But, it helps in other ways, such as composition, helping you frame the image more accurately.

Each lens has a sweet spot, and in general, a zoom may need to be shot at a smaller aperture for maximum image quality. I don't know the optical performance of your Sigma, but the Nikon 80-400 for example, is sharpest in the f/7.1 to f/8 range. Obviously, lots of other factors to consider, but the tripod will give you more flexibility on your exposure settings.

Shooting manual by itself won't make the pictures any sharper, but it will allow you more options on how you balance shutter speed vs. aperture vs. ISO. If the lighting is consistent (not ducking in or out of clouds, or going from full sun to shadows, manual is the way to go. If the bird is in consistent light, it won't matter what the background changes to, your bird exposure will be accurate (assuming it set the exposure right in the first place, of course.) I will take a couple of test shots, check my exposure on histogram, fine tweak my manual camera settings as needed, and then don't have to worry about the background changes, etc.

Too aggressive noise reduction will eat up fine detail, so try to do selective noise reduction on the background, usually most needed in darker areas.

Lots of variables, but for most of us, the cameras and lenses are better than we are, we just need to work to their strengths.
Cheers

Randy

[Jeff Sorbie]

Thanks Randy