This Swainson’s Thrush came in and gave me exactly three frames yesterday. I had this one with the left end of the perch truncated and when I moved the camera to pick it up, the bird looked the opposite way. After it left, I finally remembered to do what I tell others and shoot an in-focus image of the foreground part of the perch. When I processed this, I took this image as the basis, picked up the left end of the perch from the following frame and the foreground from a couple of frames later and hand stitched them together in Photoshop.
What technical feedback would you like if any?
Anything. Is the stitching obvious anywhere?
What artistic feedback would you like if any?
How’s the final composition?
Pertinent technical details or techniques:
7DII, Sigma 150-600 C @ 451 mm, tripod with ball head and Sidekick, f/8, 1/250, iso 2000, manual exposure for all three images. Processed in LR & PS CC. Noise reduction with Neat Image. Final image size before export for web was 4902x3648. Taken July 14th at 8:34 am under cloudy skies.
If you would like your image to be eligible for a feature on the NPN Instagram (@NaturePhotoNet), add the tag ‘ig’ and leave your Instagram username below.
You may only download this image to demonstrate post-processing techniques.
Every time I see Swainson’s Thrush images, I have to do a double-take. We have lots of very similar Hermit Thrushes around here, but nary a Swainson’s. A favorite neighborhood friend, but I just can’t transform them.
If the Swainson’s is as camera shy, that’s all the more kudos for this image. Wonderful! Your methods for dealing with the OOF perch are worthy.
This one has been pretty skittish, as are most, though I’ve heard reports and seen some pretty human accustomed ones at a nearby wildlife refuge.
This is an excellent shot, Dennis, and if you had not mention that you had to stitch it together from other shot, there would be no way I would have known it. Very well captured and processed.
A really fine image with excellent PS work. There are a couple of yellow flowers on the left side near the tip of the perch that are distracting.
