(If backgrounds have been removed, etc. please be honest with your techniques to help others learn)
Hi John,
It’s a very pretty setting and bird, but there are some image quality issues. The bird and perch are lacking fine details, and the image is quite noisy. I suspect this was all due to a very large crop. On the settings front, I’d have shot this at f/6.3 or f/7.1 at the most. I doubt you gained much at all shooting at f/14, and you cost yourself a lot of shutter speed. You’d be lucky to get a sharp shot of this bird at all at 1/200.
Thanks Lyle, Appreciate the help. Wondering why all the shots were not sharp and had high noise. This bird is not much larger than a hummingbird. Hope to reset my f stop lower as you suggest and increase speed. This bird is feeding on my Crape Myrtle trees so my hope is that it stays around for more shots.
Wayne
Not much to add to Lyle’s comment, Wayne. It’s certainly a lovely setting and I’ve always liked this species. One more trick for processing. If you can select the bird (or mask it and then invert the mask) you can sharpen just the bird without affecting the rest of the image, which keeps noise down in the background.
Thanks Dennis, an alternative process to the usual Topaz software. Will certainly try it.
Wayne
This is a very pretty shot, with all the bright colors, John! I personally, don’t find the noise all that objectionable as its a fine grain and consistent. The pose with the flowers is excellent and well placed in the frame. I think a little more sharpening in the large version would pull out some more detail. The small version looks fine, probably because the site seems to add sharpening when it automatically creates the small version.
Thanks Gary, This bird is not much larger than a hummingbird so I wonder if the larger version will automatically reveal more noise? I have reposted the original for comparison …
@johnwayne - The original post at first blush seemed OK, but when really looked at critically did have issues that have been pointed out. The first responder guessed a large crop. After reviewing the original uncropped image I worked a different take on the image. A while back I wrote an article titled “Including the Environment - Context Matters”. This image reminded me of the kind of things I used to try to do as well with cropping down to the subject. I’m only sharing this as I think this is a prime image that was pushed too far. If you like it that way, that’s fine, just offering the article and a different view for thought.
Hi, Keith, I remember your article very well but there were issues with insect damage to many of the leaves in original picture. I’m not taking exception to your very kind suggestions , just explaining why I choose the close crop. I am retired from the business world and “now” notice the many varieties of birds and relish seeing them up close.
Thanks for the Review,
Wayne
