The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
Out for a walk with the camera and large lens hoping for an opportunity. Heard a wren song and turned around to find this guy not too far away on an isolated perch with a high the sun on its back. Had not photographed this wren before and was glad to take advantage of the opportunity.
Specific Feedback
Any comments welcomed. I opened up shadows on the right side of the bird and masked for the highlights in the eye brow and throat. The background was was relatively smooth but I worked the color and softened the clarity, too much?
Technical Details
Nikon 200-500 mm at 500mm, 1/1600 @f9 ISO 1100, handheld . Processing done in Lightroom and Topaz AI noise reduction
Outstanding pose you have here. Great timing! I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of these before so thanks for sharing. The sidelight particularly suits the subject and brings out nice contour and texture. I do find the cyan/green cast in the shadows odd and wonder if a wb adjustment would take care of that. Unless the bird is actually green which it may be. The feather detail looks a bit uneven and slightly over-sharpened in spots, but that’s in the largest view. What a treat to see this though. A beauty.
I’m with @Kris_Smith that the sidelight is a nice feature here. I, too like the pose and the perch, could stand just a wee bit more light, in my opinion. A bit of noise present in the dark areas at the very largest view, but you have to look hard for it. Nice shot.
An absolutely gorgeous pose, Stephen. The composition is excellent. I also agree with @Kris_Smith nits on the slightly uneven sharpening (something I don’t like about most of the AI sharpening algorithms). I hadn’t caught the color cast she mentioned, but I do see it now. With that pose, this image is worth a lot of playing around to get it perfect.
Appreciate the comments feedback and recommendations. @David_Schoen@terryb@Kris_Smith@Dennis_Plank. I did think the pose was unique and different. I’ll have to work with wb and see if I can purge that green cast in the shadow area. The bird has no green feather coloring and through the wings and back is pretty much soft rusty shades of brown. I do notice some uneven results with the Topaz noise reduction in many images. I’ll have to try Lightroom’s new detail module. The birds was undergoing a molt and spent a minute plucking , preening and working its groom or was trying to remove some ticks. Again, thanks for the input.
Hi Stephen, love the pose you caught and agree the side light is very complimentary. Good observations and advice above so I’ll just state congrats on a fine capture.
Wonderful catch with a unique and beautiful pose! Denoise and Sharpening irregularities can often be mitigated with some low-opacity masking on their layer.
I wonder if the whites could be brought up a little here? Try a Curves layer and pull the UR corner to the left a little.
