Gold Finch

[Gary Thompson]

Gold finches are getting there summer colors now.

Model = Canon EOS 7D
Exposure Time = 1/640"
F Number = F9
ISO Speed Ratings = 1600
Subject Distance = 6.47m
Metering Mode = Spot
Flash = Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode
Focal Length = 500mm
Exposure Mode = Manual exposure
White Balance = Auto white balance

ACR exposure adjustments; CS4 curves, saturation adjustments, noise reduction on background and sharpen the subject.




Thanks for looking.



Gary

[Kerry Perkins]

Nice one Gary! Good pose, detail, colors, and head angle. Some pretty hot spots in the whites and yellow areas, would vote to tone them down a tad. Nice background which compliments the bird well. I would suggest lightening the catch light in the eye a bit and I would clone away that part of the perch that is sticking out of the bird's head. Nice image! Oh, one more thing - I would crop a tiny sliver from the top to eliminate the brighter spots right at the edge on the right.

[Joe Brown]

Very nice shot.

Both the f/9.0 and ISO of 1600 settings seem high. Unless there is very little light my settings are usually in the range f/5.6 and ISO of 400 or 800.
As usual Kerry has covered it very well.

Joe

[Gary Thompson]

Kerry, thanks for the input on this. Funny, I checked the yellows before I put it out on Flickr and it seemed fine, but checking it here, it is definitely hot. Must loose a bit somewhere along the way. Tried your suggestions, and here is the repost. The only one I'm still undecided about is the removal of the perch from behind the head. I'll keep looking at it. Maybe I just need to get used to it. Catchlight was pretty easy to adjust and I like that much better. Also cropped of the tad at the top.

Joe, I need f9 because I want the bird sharp from tip to toe, and am shooting fairly close. I'm sure I could lower the ISO and SS,, but wind up with less keepers as these little buggers are pretty fast and don't sit still for long. I usually shoot at ISO 800, so this had to have been a dark day. Thanks for the comment.

[Kerry Perkins]

Looks better Gary! You shouldn't mourn over the loss of the branch sticking out of the head, it really is distracting to my eye and isn't necessary to justify the perch. The bonus is you don't have to clean up the end of it...

I always check my images in a web browser using a color meter after converting for the web. There are often surprises!

[Stan Cunningham]

NICE detail. I'm going to start trying F 9, new to this lens and at close range I do lose some depending on the birds position so I'll follow your lead to see how it works.