My first Merlin

[Daniele Morasca]

Hi all,

I would like to post a shoot from the last week-end here in Santa Severa near Rome, IT.

This is a female European Merlin Falcon, really rare in italy (they migrate from Africa), much more so early in the season.

I would like to get some critiques about the shot, composition and PP.
Only applied level, NR, curve, saturation, sharpening. LR3+PS4

Canon 7D 300 f2.8 IS+2tc, ISO400, 1/640@f6.3, Av mode

P.s. In your opinion I'll get better result with 2 1.4 stacked? (Canon 1.4 II + Kenko 1.4 300 PRO).

[Bill Dix]

Good looking Merlin, with a great lookback pose and nice perch. I like the composition. Details look good, but backlighting was tough and bright bg detracts from the bird. I'll be interested in hearing what others say, but it seems to me it could benefit from some brightening of the bird, maybe with s/h, and toning down of the bright background.

[Daniele Morasca]

Thanks Bill.

I'll try to do what you saying ... I'm not really good in PP but i'll do my best, following your hints.

I've overexposed +1EV to get the feather detail but the pool in background as resulter overexposed ... I'll try to operate with the s/h tool.

[Bill Dix]

Make sure you work separately on the bird and on the background, using a layer for each.

[Gerald Kelberg]

I like the backlight - being a contrary person! It seems to work well in this composition with the bright light catching the head and providing the contrast with the background. Perhaps a little more detail is possible out of the back feathers but I do really like it as presented.

G.

[VinceRossi]

Great catch on a rare bird. I like the shot and the pose, but I think thr background can be turned a little.

[Doug Brown]

Hi Daniele. Congrats on your first Merlin! There are a number of very good learning points in this image.
1. Pay attention to potential exposure problems when composing an image. Here you had a dark subject against a bright BG. You correctly recognized that you needed +EC, but you probably needed another full stop. Take a quick scout frame and adjust your exposure accordingly. You should only be concerned with proper exposure of the bird.
2. A cardinal sin with high-megapixel crop sensors is to underexpose your darks. Recovery almost always results in very high noise levels.
3. The 300mm f/2.8 takes a 2x very well, but I would think about stopping down to f/7.1 or f/8 to get the best image quality out of the combination.
4. The maximum horizontal dimension for an image on BPN is 1024 pixels wide. ;)
Here's a repost that attempts to correct the exposure.

[Lance Peters]

Nice repost Doug - puts this over the top.

Make use and understand your Histogram - turn on your over exposure blinkies in camera and push your exposure to the right. Here on the LCD you would not be worrying about any Blinkies on anything but the BIRD! So the background would have flashing highlights - just dont want any on the bird - getting your exposure right will reduce the need to adjust afterwards and possibly intorduce noise.
Love the look back pose and the BG on the repost looks good.

[Julie Kenward]

Doug, you beat me to it! Lovely repost and it really makes the most of this image. Daniele, you did a beautiful job of getting a great pose that shows off his wonderful feathers and you also got a very nice HA. When you're out in the field be sure to watch what is intersecting the lines of the bird - here you have that dark area right at the edge of his head. Moving your angle up or down to get it all in the light or all in the dark (if it's possible) would always be the way to go. Just something to keep in mind...

[Daniele Morasca]

Hi Daniele. Congrats on your first Merlin! There are a number of very good learning points in this image.
1. Pay attention to potential exposure problems when composing an image. Here you had a dark subject against a bright BG. You correctly recognized that you needed +EC, but you probably needed another full stop. Take a quick scout frame and adjust your exposure accordingly. You should only be concerned with proper exposure of the bird.
2. A cardinal sin with high-megapixel crop sensors is to underexpose your darks. Recovery almost always results in very high noise levels.
3. The 300mm f/2.8 takes a 2x very well, but I would think about stopping down to f/7.1 or f/8 to get the best image quality out of the combination.
4. The maximum horizontal dimension for an image on BPN is 1024 pixels wide. ;)
Here's a repost that attempts to correct the exposure.

Thanks a lot for the answer and clarification Doug.

1- You're surely right but I was shotting different target and the Merlin appear only for few second ... btw I need more practices and that's for sure, even to control the 7D setting and improve my abilities.
2- I try all the time to avoid, in this shot the histogram is well placed (highlight are strongly overexposed) ... probably I was too worried about the highlights, as Lance said I to worry much more about the subject.
3- I'll try to close at f8 next time.
4- Really sorry about that ... will not happen again.

P.s. I'll try to replicate your repost ... I've tried with S/H on background but was unable to eliminate the full highlights Clipping ... probably I've to selective underexpose the BG layer too.

Thanks a lot for feedback, really appreciated.

[Doug Brown]

For the purposes of education, could you please replace the image in pane 1 with your original image? You can post a reply to the thread with your reprocessed image, which by the way looks very good!

[Daniele Morasca]

My fault ... now I've fixed ... sorry

[Daniele Morasca]

Doug, you beat me to it! Lovely repost and it really makes the most of this image. Daniele, you did a beautiful job of getting a great pose that shows off his wonderful feathers and you also got a very nice HA. When you're out in the field be sure to watch what is intersecting the lines of the bird - here you have that dark area right at the edge of his head. Moving your angle up or down to get it all in the light or all in the dark (if it's possible) would always be the way to go. Just something to keep in mind...

Thanks for the advice ... never thinked before ...

now I'll try to remember this "tip" :)