First post in a while. Critique of any kind would be greatly appreciated. I have a couple of things that I am not happy with. 1. The OOF branch, 2. The sharpness around the eye is not great - I think due to focus hitting top of shoulder not eye (The bird moved, I swear it!!) 3. I should have cranked the ISO further to get a faster shutter speed and stopped down the aperture to help DOF a little.
Great lookback pose Rob. Nice and sharp around head. The eye looks sharp to me. The tail in images like this forms a prominent part of the image so it is better to try to get the whole bird within the depth of field- you mention this. I agree that the second OOF branch is distracting- it would also be fairly easy to remove with some masking.
Hey Rob, I really like the HA, and the eye looks sharp to me as well. If I knew how to do it I would remove the OOF branch. Do you know if this is a male or female? Nice shot.
Just mask off the areas you do not want to be affected (Quickmask), then use the close tool to fill in. When masking something like this, use a medium hard brush so that the masking is fairly precise. Here is the result for a 5 min job.
Thank you for the comments.
Julie - I am hosting the image so not sure what the problem was.
annmpacheco - I am not 100% sure, however I believe it is a male. The colouring is very subtle which confused me. I thought perhaps it might be a young male. Any insight from anyone would be awesome.
John - Thank you for the tips on the masking - you did an amazing job for 5 mins of work. The shot looks 100 times better without the OOF branch.
Great Crested Flycatcher
