The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
Catching small birds in flight is very difficult. at least 99% or more of my attempts had been total failures. But every now and then I get lucky is in this shot.
Specific Feedback
any
Technical Details
Iso 1600, 150 to 600 mm at 390 mm, F10, 3200th, D750, fill flash
Critique Template
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Wow! I’m amazed you were able to capture a small, fast bird in flight like this - nice and sharp, lots of detail in the feathers, even got a little catch light in his eye!! I’m wondering what the pattern is in the green background? Could you smooth it out? He is beautiful!
Great shot, David. With all the goldfinches we have here I don’t have more than one or two flight shots. I too see the banding in the background which is usually related to the jpeg conversion, though I’m afraid I don’t know how to prevent it. In this case it has some really cool shapes to it that I rather like, though I know it’s not acceptable by the conventional standards.
Nice in flight catch David. Love the pose with the fanned tail and visible eye. BG is nice but I do see the banding others have mentioned above. A fine catch.
Really nice flight shot, David. The flared tail and peek at the head is cool, and BG and positioning in the frame is perfect.
I Can’t help with the banding concern, though.
The only way to solve banding is to prevent it. The best way to minimize banding is to do all the tonal work in LR where there is more overhead – i.e. don’t darken the BG any more in PS. Bring it into PS at 16 bits, and do the JPEG at highest quality.
This banding is quite strong – I’m guessing you may have darkened the BG in PS. Even at 16 bits you have less leeway than in LR.
Thanks
Dennis thought it might have something to do with JPEG Conversion.
Way back when, Topaz had a product that eliminated the banding.
For me, with this particular image, I did not have good lighting, and I could not see the banding. I’ll have another look and see if I can eliminate it.
David
Regarding the banding in the BG, try selecting the subject in photoshop, reversing the selection, then then blurring it till the banding goes away. Very cool capture, BTW.
Diane
I was using Photoshop with the image and was trying to separate the background from the subject. I did this successfully, But using a Field blur seem to have caused the banding. If you do this In light room, I don’t understand how you can work with layers to do something like this.
Can you post the file as it appeared before you did the blur? Honestly, the bird here looks like it has been pasted on an artificial BG. There are ways to correct flaws in a BG that leave it with some natural appearance, and reduced opacity cloning is the best one. A subject selection can be valuable in that case to avoid some splashing over, but the cloning is best kept subtle and away from the subject.
My normal BG for our feeders is farther away than I like and the BG often comes out too soft. Sometimes I use Detail Extractor on it, excluding the bird, to give it a little more “tooth” but it’s usually too featureless for that to work.
For me, this BG is much more natural than the blurred one. I wouldn’t call it splotchy at all. It looks like naturally OOF branches at a nice distance.
All it needs to me is basic shadows and highlights in LR (only a little), then open in PS. Topaz Denoise, Low Light or maybe Severe Noise, defaults set. Then clone out the leaves in the UL.
Then export from LR at 2000-2500 px wide and high quality. I think your banding may be coming from trying to export a larger-sized file and then something is lowering the quality to keep the file size lower.
In fact, I’m sure of it now. I just looked back at your more recent posts and they have less banding and are at smaller pixel sizes. Use an export protocol that gives you full control. You can’t beat the export dialog in LR.
