Yellow Headed Blackbird
The light for the past 2 weeks has been abysmal with heavy overcast, rain, snow & winds gusting to 55 MPH. The only time the light is any where near acceptable is when the sun drops below the overcast. Regardless, I have been out with my camera. I shot this image last night. I know the SS is too slow & consequently it is probably soft. But I would still be interested in your thoughts.
Andrew
Mrk III, ISO 400, 1/160, F/5.6, tripod.
Hi Andrew,
Great effort, i get the feeling the image was underexposed? seems to be abit of noise in the blacks. With a mk3 (i dont know i have never used one) could you not have raised the iso to get a better SS?
The sharp contrast on these birds will not be easy to capture and IMO i think you have done a great job overall
Pete
Thanks Pete. I should have upped the ISO. I shot the image @ 700mm (500 f4 +1.4X) & an ev of +.33. The cloded sun was on the right of the bird. You are right about the noise in the blacks. I did run noise reduction.Originally Posted by PeterCollins
Andrew
Hi Andrew, very nice bird. I'm with Pete that it seems like you lifted the blacks and created noise in the process. Also, the yellow area on the breast seems a bit blown and lacking detail. I like the soft, creamy BG but would clone out the rightmost branch. IMO, 1/160 with a tripod should be OK with a still bird, but it's usually a good idea to crank up the ISO somewhat to increase the SS. I've never seen those lovely birds, so thanks for sharing.
Good suggestions. Thanks. Andrew
Hi Andrew The heavy overcast is preferable to full sun ... wind is something else !!!
Don't worry much about noise with the Mk3, can go to 800 without problems and would not hesitate going to 1600 if needed .. feather detail will suffer some. For the introduced noise you can use Noiseware Pro and clean it up without problems. For insects my base ISO was 1600 with the Mk3.
.. when raising ISO one thing you can not afford is any under exposure, must expose to the right !!! btw with these do try some fill flash, great with overcast conditions, besides brightening a bit will create a catch light in the eye which will appear more alive !!!
al nailed it with the fill flash. i think it would have done the trick here. you had everything else going for you. awesome bg and pose from the bird!!
Thanks all. I knew you all would have very good suggestions for me.
Andrew
Hi Andrew - agree with AL's points - make use of your over exposure blinkies and the histogram on the camera.
The blacks do look a little dark and lacking in detail - like the singing pose .
Any NR used??
Yep to noise reduction. It came with the software—Aperture.
Andrew
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