I shot this starling in our local park late this afternoon. The photo didn't quite capture the iridescence of the purples and greens, even when I increased the saturation. I also wasn't sure if I should have cropped it closer. Let me know what you think.
Canon Rebel Xsi; 300 f/4 lens with 1.4 extender; 420 mm; ISO 400; f 5.6; 1/1000; handheld; sharpened.
You did get some of the color off the breast they are a beautiful bird especially when the light hits just right. The picture has a few opportunities such as the darks and mid tones are blocked, you can use levels and the fill light/exposure adjustments to lighten the black areas. In this case you offered the best critique of all, the iridescence colors did not come thru as you planned. This would have made the image stronger and without that difference maker the photo is nice but lacks your original purpose. This happens to us all, the other day I photographed a morning fog around several ducks. When I viewed the image it looks more like poor IQ not the serene fog I had seen - so it goes. Yes, I can work post production and make it better but in my case the image was lost in my eye. You are on the right track seeing color as a subject and the eye is the cameras best friend - keep em coming.
Last edited by Jeff Cashdollar; 04-02-2012 at 10:03 PM.
Jeff,
Thanks for your input. I tried to lighten the midtones and blacks as you suggested. Then I decided that all the branches were too distracting, so I cloned out (or painted over) all of the OOF branches. I think it's an improvement...see what you think.
Wendy
Yes - this is better the subject is displayed with few distractions the darks are lighter and colors are better. The enhanced crop introduced additional noise and possible dust spots did you run noise reduction?
Additionally, have you browsed around in the education and education forum.
I ran noise reduction when the image was still in RAW format, but I can re-run it. I've browsed a bit around the educational forum, although probably not enough. I'll do that over the weekend.
European Starling
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