Great Crested Flycatcher

[Peter Farrell]

I think this is a juvenile? Sony A700, 70-400G @400mm, f5.6, 1/2000, iso800 ev +1.3
Cloned out some oof leaves and hotspots and blended the BG. Levels, boost contrast and sharpen bird.
40% of FF

[Harold Davis]

i like the composition and bg. the birds seems to have lost some detail due to something. i see some color noise in the feathers. big crop? or heavy sharpening?

[Lance Peters]

HI Peter - Good looking Bird - Love the BG - but have to agree with Harold - Bird is soft and lacking fine detail.
Plenty of SS so thats not the cause - Maybe the high ISO or NR on the whole image or big crop??
If this was sharp would be quite nice.

[David Thomasson]

Judging from the halos around the subject, I'm guessing that you used Gaussian blur on the whole image and then masked the subject back in. If so see the discussion on this thread for a better way to blur the background.

[Dave Mills]

Hi Peter, good subject,lighting,muted backround and pose. Due to the 60% crop the image seems to have lost detail. Agree that if it was sharp it would be quite nice...

[Peter Farrell]

Thanks for the comments.

[Alfred Forns]

Great call on how the image got to that point !!!

When processing start with noise reduction and careful which program you use !! If using CS5 you need to look no further !!