Loggerhead Shrike

[Robert Holguin]

Hello everyone, well this is my first time posting here. I finally got the courage to post here so here it goes. I finally got the chance to get close enough to capture some decent pics of this amazing bird. Shot from my car window. I removed some branches to the left of it, sharpened it, and ran surface blur on the bacground.
Camera - Nikon 300s, Lense - Nikon 200-400mm f4 w/1.4 tc, Exposure - 1/1250, Aperture - f10, ISO - 800, Focal Length - 550, Aperture Priority.

Robert,
Please repost your image. We only allow an image to be 800px on the vertical and 1024px on the horizontal.
Your image was 1024 on the vert.
Thanks and welcome to BPN.

[Robert Holguin]

Ok. I hope this one works.

[James Shadle]

Thank You!!!

Robert,
Before I offer a critique, how much of a crop is this image?
James

[Robert Holguin]

Thank You!!!

Robert,
Before I offer a critique, how much of a crop is this image?
James

Hello James. I did not how to figure this out but somebody gave some kind of formula. I multiply the w&h of the original, multiply the w&h of the cropped pic, then divided the sums. So if did my math correct and the formula is right I come out with 11%.

[Lance Peters]

11% crop or 11% of the original :)

[Robert Holguin]

11% crop or 11% of the original :)

Hello Lance. I'm going to be honest, I really don't know. I have never been asked how much of a crop or been able to figure it out. All I can say is that looking at the original and how much I cropped its a little over half a crop. Looking at this image posted here I see that it looks to be on the soft side. When I resized it for this forum I totally forgot to re-sharpen the image. I don't know if that has something to do with it..

On another note and this is not to make any excuses for me. I have just been photographing for a little over 6 months. I knew nothing about photography, so everything I know has been
self taught and what I've learned reading trough forums. So I apologize if I seem dumb and not know certain things you ask me, but I am eager to learn.

[WIlliam Maroldo]

Robert; no need to apologize! The reason degree of cropping is important is because the more you crop any image the more the image degrades, and this image quality problem can easily be attributed to other reasons if the crop influence has not been disclosed.
Do you shoot RAW, and what image editor do you use? If you use ACR (adobe camera raw) you can note the size of the un-cropped image, shown at the bottom center in MP (megapixels) , and the size that shows up after you crop. You will come up with something like 12.4 MP cropped to 8MP, which to me is more useful (and unambiguous) than percentage. In the example roughly 1/3 has been cropped.
About your image; nice shrike image with the classic thorny plant they like. Image detail could certainly be better. The techs seem appropriate, though F/10 is probably overkill unless you were very close.
regards~Bill

[Robert Holguin]

Robert; no need to apologize! The reason degree of cropping is important is because the more you crop any image the more the image degrades, and this image quality problem can easily be attributed to other reasons if the crop influence has not been disclosed.
Do you shoot RAW, and what image editor do you use? If you use ACR (adobe camera raw) you can note the size of the un-cropped image, shown at the bottom center in MP (megapixels) , and the size that shows up after you crop. You will come up with something like 12.4 MP cropped to 8MP, which to me is more useful (and unambiguous) than percentage. In the example roughly 1/3 has been cropped.
About your image; nice shrike image with the classic thorny plant they like. Image detail could certainly be better. The techs seem appropriate, though F/10 is probably overkill unless you were very close.
regards~Bill

Hello Bill. Thank you very much for your feedback. As to shooting in RAW. I don't. I shoot jpeg. I know its highly recommend to shoot RAW. I have tried in the past to shoot Raw and used the NIKON software that came with my 300s to process it. When I load the pic I really don't know what adjustments I need to make so I rather not deal with it. Do you recommend any books or websites that I can read to help me out.

[WIlliam Maroldo]

Hi Robert. Hopefully someone else here can point you on info on working with RAW. There is alot of stuff out there on the subject, but basically it is actually quite simple. Shoot in RAW, open in the RAW converter (with photoshop it is ACR), adjust parameters such as exposure, then open in the image editor.

What image editor are you using, or plan to use ? regards~Bill

[Robert Holguin]

Hi Robert. Hopefully someone else here can point you on info on working with RAW. There is alot of stuff out there on the subject, but basically it is actually quite simple. Shoot in RAW, open in the RAW converter (with photoshop it is ACR), adjust parameters such as exposure, then open in the image editor.

What image editor are you using, or plan to use ? regards~Bill

I use PhotoShop cs4

[WIlliam Maroldo]

CS4, good. Shoot images in RAW, place in a separate folder on your computer, open this in Adobe Bridge, double click on the thumbnail of the image and it will open in ACR, after adjusting click "open image" and you are in CS4.
You can also shoot RAW + jpeg and use the jpeg image as a guide to ACR adjustments to get a feel for the workflow. regards~Bill

[Robert Holguin]

CS4, good. Shoot images in RAW, place in a separate folder on your computer, open this in Adobe Bridge, double click on the thumbnail of the image and it will open in ACR, after adjusting click "open image" and you are in CS4.
You can also shoot RAW + jpeg and use the jpeg image as a guide to ACR adjustments to get a feel for the workflow. regards~Bill

Bill thank you very much for all the advice.

[Ian Cassell]

Hey Robert and welcome. This is a great way to start your posting. This is one of those birds I have never seen. Your composition with the long vertical frame and the long stretch of branch before you reach the bird is unusual and I like it very much. You got a nice catchlight in the shrike's eye and I like the 'look back over the shoulder' pose.

[Robert Holguin]

Hey Robert and welcome. This is a great way to start your posting. This is one of those birds I have never seen. Your composition with the long vertical frame and the long stretch of branch before you reach the bird is unusual and I like it very much. You got a nice catchlight in the shrike's eye and I like the 'look back over the shoulder' pose.

Thank you very much for your feedback.