The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
This guy lives across the street. Him and his family come over to my house every day to get meal worms I put out for them. It snowed a little (2 inches) so when I put out the meal worms onto the snow, they really showed up. I had 4 or 5 different species of birds come. About 15 to 20 big black birds swooped in and cleaned off the worms before the blue birds had a chance. While the black birds were eating, I got a few shots of this blue bird waiting his turn. Later he did get to eat.
Specific Feedback
I think maybe I cropped him in to much. There was debris on either side of him that I didn’t want in the image. I’m not crazy about the BG either and was thinking of putting him on a different BG.
Technical Details
R5m2, 70-200 135mm,f3.2, 1/100sec ISO 100
Critique Template
Use of the template is optional, but it can help spark ideas.
Nice pose and look from this beautiful bird John, great colors too. I might consider losing a few of the twigs sticking up, particularly from the bottom left side.
Hi John, nice pose you captured. These are such beautiful birds. The crop is tight and the bird lacks feather detail. I can understand wanting to crop out distractions though. I could also see removing the sticks in lower left and darkening the remaining ones.
I removed the twigs and tried to sharpen the image in AI. @Ed_Williams, @Allen_Sparks . Allen, I’m not sure how to darken just the twigs. I tried different ways in PS but was unsuccessful.
Hi John. I’m not sure what’s going on with the image quality, but the back of the bird is looking like a watercolor more than a photograph (not necessarily a bad thing). It looks like the image was overexposed to get those branches that bright and unfortunately, when they are they tend to look gray instead of brown when you try to darken them.
You didn’t mention it, but this image looks like you might have used flash on it.
Also, could you tell us how large a crop this is? I have a feeling that a large crop might be affecting the image quality.
You did catch a nice pose and the colors are wonderful.
Dennis, thanks for taking a look, I respect your thoughts and advise.
I’m not sure what went wrong with the birds back. Although the tail feathers look OK. Your right, it must be the crop? I did not change the color of the branches. I would have changed the color but , not sure how. This is a dead bush and that is the color, almost white. You can see a little ice between a couple branches near his feet for comparisons. And no, I did not use a flash, he was facing the sun, I was in the shade. I’ll try to get a tighter shot next time.
A very unusual exposure for sure. This image is a good candidate to try the Highlights adjustment in Adobe Camera Raw. This can lower the brightness of the twigs and brightest portions on the bluebird. The linear profile in ACR is easy to adjust and you may get a better balance in exposure.
When sharpening work in a layer where you can adjust the opacity of the sharpening layer to fine tune the amount of sharpening. The head of the BB is very crunchy in the repost, One aspect of bird photography is getting a pleasing BG to go with the bird. All you need is to be more selective and position yourself to get the best image possible. It takes practice and time and follow the critiques offered in your posts and good things will happen…Jim
Thanks Jim, what you have stated is again very helpful. I’ll take it into ACR and see what I can do.
And it is very much like you have put it,
" It takes practice and time and follow the critiques offered in your posts and good things will happen".
THANKS
