Western Scrub Jay

[Ian Cassell]

Canon 7D
Canon EF400mm f/5.6L

1/1600sec f/6.3 ISO 1250
S/H in CS5
Sharpening in GF6/CS5
NR on BG in Noiseware Pro

[Myer Bornstein]

Nice composition but looks like there is a lot of magenta on the bird

[Julie Kenward]

Ian, it's a very nice pose and you got some great details here but I'm seeing some problems with the image. Like Myer, I'm seeing a lot of magenta on the light areas of the bird and a real blue cast on the gray perch. I'm also seeing a LOT of noise - my guess is that it's due to a large crop...is that right?

You've also blown out the whites in a few small areas so I'd advise opening the image up in RAW format, pulling down the blown highlights so the spike on the histogram goes away. I'd then use the color picker to touch on a neutral gray area and see if you can't get the color balance back to where it should be. Finally, I'd try to lighten up the BG and run some more noise reduction.

You've got a good base image here but there are some definite problems that you could fix and it would really make a huge difference.

[Ian Cassell]

Thanks for commenting folks. Actually, it's not that big a crop, but at ISO 1250 I guess I need some more NR. I'll poke around with it some more and see if I can get the color balance right.

[Dave Leroy]

Good looking bird and a really nice pose.

Quality must be off a bit due to ISO then. It looks like you had a bit of room on the ss to bring ISO down. Must be another reason you were up there.

Dave

[Ian Cassell]

Thanks, Dave. I was handholding and don't do well with much slower SS (I'm not all that steady handed).