Captured this painted bunting at Lake Martin in south Louisiana in April '07. I don't like the background, but I don't know how or if I can correct it. This was the only chance he gave me in the open and it was brief. Any suggestions are appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Canon 20D
Canon 500mm f/4L with 1.4 converter
1/500s f/5.6 at 700.0mm iso400
Av mode
Evaluative metering
No Flash
Great details and pose, Tim. The light looks quite harsh, fill flash might have helped. If it is not a big crop already, you could go for a vertical crop to get rid of the busiest parts of the BG.
Lovely overall feel to this one !
Gorgeous bird and great detail !
I think the colors in the background complement the bird quite nicely and have the
makings for a nice environmental. Might consider cropping the top about 1/5 of the way
down to above the leaves coming in from the left and maybe cropping a bit from the left side.
I think this would be a stronger composition and also help to make the background a bit less
overwhelming. The other thing that I would consider would be to try to selectively blur the
background to the right of the bird to try to get rid of the "lines" near the head. Toning down
the hot spots in that area a bit may help also.
This is a very nice photo of a difficult-to-photograph species. These small, active songbirds are the bane of my existence, photo-wise. As Axel said, great details and pose, and I think a vertical crop (a bit from the left, and about 1/3 from the right) would make this a stunning image.
Tim, I understand why you're proud of this photo. Nice detail and pose. I agree with Mike that the blue in the background is very complementary and I'd hate to lose it. While I like the idea of a vertical crop, I don't see how you can keep the blue (unless you do a lot of manipulation and clone it in) and I agree on using a quick mask to further blur the background.
Arthur, how about you or one of the other moderators taking a shot and showing us how this would work out?
Thanks for the JPEG Fabs. A tighter crop and a bit of DeSAT yielded the image below... I love the BKGR esp the stuff in the upper right.
later and love, artie
Last edited by Arthur Morris; 01-03-2008 at 12:51 PM.
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