Winter Warmth: Male Northern Cardinal

Image Critiques Avian Critiques
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Cardinalmae01212024.jpg
Cardinalmae01212024.jpg2000×1699 688 KB

Critique Style Requested: Standard

The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.

Description

Sunday morning was dark and snowy so I loaded up 11 bird feeders and set up my rig to catch any visitors at the feeders. Cardinals are very twitchy–they never sit still and males usually show up at dusk well after the Coopers hawks have gone to bed. Several male cardinals began to feed and was able to snag a few good ones before they flew off.

Specific Feedback

I have switched from Topaz DeNoise to using DeNoise in Lightroom Classic and Nik Raw Sharpener. Does this treatment work for this image? Thank you for your evaluation.

Technical Details

Z9 600mm f4 (1/500 sec. at f9.0, ISO 800, fill flash at -2ev) Lightroom DeNoise, Levels, Crop for comp, rubber stamp tool to remove bright area on branch above subject, Nik Raw Sharpener. …Jim

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Great perch, Jim. I don’t see any objectionable noise and the sharpening looks fine. I’m not sure about the out of focus snow flakes since they’re not really identifiable as such. The lighting feels rather flat given the setting on your fill flash. Unfortunately, with that many feeders, you probably can’t pre-position the flash to get some modeling.

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This guy is fluorescent! Red against gray is a powerful combo. I like the branch at structure to frame the bird. Might zap the one flake a little left of the beak.

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Thank you @Diane_Miller and @Dennis_Plank for your critiques. There was so much light reflecting off of the snow that the bird appeared to be in a giant soft box. I might be able to pull down some shadowing from the TAW file. Overall, I’m quite happy with this photo and @Diane_Miller, I will nuke that snowflake…Jim