The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
This long-billed thrasher came on the run to the Laguna Atascosa bird blind just outside the Visitor Center. The center had been closed for a few days and there was no food in the feeders or any oranges which are usually brought in and placed around. My wife and I had four nice oranges that we sacrificed for the occasion, which is encouraged at the blind. Within minutes they all came flying in. The Baltimore and Altimira Orioles, the cow birds, the green jays, doves, and a couple of these long-billed thrashers.
Specific Feedback
It is a very busy BG. Not sure how to get this bird to stand out better. I cloned out an orange and spike that was on the stump. Hope that isn’t too obvious. Any comments are welcomed.
Technical Details
Canon 5DMiii, f8, 1/800s, iso 3200, 100-400+1.4tc at 560 mm. Cropped with some cloning. Some Gaussian blur applied to the BG.
Critique Template
Use of the template is optional, but it can help spark ideas.
.very nice look at this bird . excellent detail and I like the pose. Good environmental setting. And quite different from the California thresher that I posted.
Hi Ed, the setting is just fine as thrashers are ground birds so this fits the species well. I like the stump perch also. In the largest size, I think I see some slight halo around parts of the bird (top of the head and back). You might check that for any processing done near there. A fine catch.
Thank you @Sandy_Richards-Brown, @David_Schoen and @Allen_Sparks. Thanks for catching the halos. For some reason I’d turned the RAW file off for a bit when I changed some setting in the camera that day and it was processed in camera as a jpeg. I think the halos were partially due to the jpeg, and partially due to my post processing cloning. I went back and redid it from scratch, darkening the haloing around the top of the bird. I think I got most of the issues solved in the repost.
Hi Ed. Nice job on this bird. I too note just the faintest halo even in the repost. I don’t think it’s anything a non-photographer would pick up on. Selections are tricky, particularly with the automated tools because you have no control over the settings. If you’re doing it in LR, you can do it before applying adjustments so you can visualize it and you can alter it by using the brush and holding down the alt key to erase parts of the selection. I’ve found that the best way to make adjustments on a bird is to make sure the selection of the bird is just inside the edges of it. Unless the adjustments are extreme that tends to be pretty unnoticeable whereas any bleed into the background seems to pop out.
Thank you @Allen_Brooks, @Dennis_Plank and @Diane_Miller. I think it was the preprocessing done by the camera to convert the file to a jpeg that got me in trouble with this one. Sometimes we don’t think things all the way through before punching that button. This forum has helped me to slow down and think a bit more about the shot before hand though.
