There were some clouds this morning giving wonderful light. I grabbed camera, tripod and stool and headed down the hill to the new feeder setup. Literally the minute I sat down, the clouds parted just where the sun was. I waited long enough to catch a few brief moments with softer light, but didn’t get much. This little guy hopped up on one of the stray branches on the ground and sat long enough for a shot. In a while there will be a field of lupine behind him, and then poppies.
Specific Feedback Requested
All comments welcome!
Technical Details
Is this a composite: No
Canon R5, 100-500 + 2X at 856. ISO 800, f/13, 1/640 sec. Tripod. Slight crop from both sides, only shadows and highlights in LR, very monor BG retouching in PS. Denoise, but probably not noticeable at this size.
I like the composition with the placement of the junco and perch and the lupine in the background. Nice creamy background. One minuscule nit would be the green band above the junco’s head.
A very nice Junco image, Diane. Superb detail with a nice pose and background. I thought that looked like a lupine bloom in the background when I looked at the thumbnail and was wondering if it were current. We’re still a long way from lupine bloom.
@Allen_Brooks – THANK YOU!! I’m distressed that I missed that – it’s the archetypal utility pole sticking out of someone’s head! And it proved challenging to fix. It was easy to select the bird’s head to protect it but cloning, even from the nearby areas, surprisingly caused posterization. And while I was at it, I wanted to make that tannish area at the top more green. The fix was to do a solid color layer sampled from an area to the left of the bird and do a gradient mask to match the tannish area and then mask more shrply to exclude the head. Then I reduced the opacity of the layer to about 50% to make it more subtle. (All this was after removing the grass and smoothing the posterized areas as best I could.) Result added above.
@Dennis_Plank, you guys up there have stolen all our winter rain, after an early wet start. The sun and warmth made all the plants think it’s spring, but a few night ago a cold front and the radiant cooling of clear air got us down to 20 degrees for several hours, and it took a toll on a lot of plants, even those I covered.
Nice work, @Diane_Miller ! Lovely setting and great pose of the bird - I like particularly that the bill is framed by the black feathers, which makes it stand out nicely. Love it ! Hans
Well done with the repost Diane. I have to say that purple flower adds quite a bit to the image. Love the pose, the head angle and the detail you captured here . The composition works really well. Wish I had a set up like this. Terrific background.
