CubanPewee+Repost

Gallery: AvianPosted February 14, 201057 views9 comments

Cuban Pewee (Contopus caribaeus)

The range of this little flycatcher is only the Bahamas and Cuba. He accompanied us for some distance as we walked through a tree-shrouded trail in Cuba. At the time I thought he was unusually friendly. Since then I’ve learned that one of the reasons flycatchers seem friendly is because they like all the bugs we attract….. and now I recall all of the mosquito bites I received on that walk……

This image was quite underexposed (no fill flash at the time). However, I found that by using the Canon Software (Digital Photo Professional) to increase the exposure, converting the raw file to tiff and importing into LR2 followed by my usual post processing (NR, exposure adjustment and sharpening in CS4 or CS4 add-ins) worked well. There is some stubborn noise in the background but it appears more like a not unattractive fine granularity to me. I like the detail of the image of the bird too.

I’d enjoy knowing your impressions of this image.

EOS 7D, EF 400 mm f/5.6: ISO 640, 1/1000 s, f/8.0, image is 3456x3456 pixels (square crop) =11.9 MP or 66% of the 18 MP of the 7D.

Comments

9 comments

Comment posted by Cheryl Molennor on February 14, 2010 at 11:46 AM

I love the comp with the thre branch perch. Software seemed to do well yet I do see the noise in the bg, Almost looks more like water color than noise.

Registered on June 30, 2009, 300 Posts, 5051 Comments

Comment posted by Wayne Willison on February 14, 2010 at 12:51 PM

Exposure looks good to me and I like the shallow dof. Would like to see more room on the right and not so much on the left.
Wouldn't mind having a flock of these guys in the Everglades in mosquito season. I'd make freinds fast.

Registered on April 10, 2009, 292 Posts, 3967 Comments

Comment posted by Ed Dubois on February 14, 2010 at 2:32 PM

Nice image Steve. If this were mine I'd tighten the crop a bit on the left and would also play with selectively lightening the pewee a bit more.

Registered on February 22, 2005, 129 Posts, 4739 Comments

Comment posted by Nate Chappell on February 14, 2010 at 2:48 PM

Nice detail on the pewee Steve, I like the perch but would take a little bit off the left to just a little before it branches off. If it were mine I'd run some selective nr on the bg.

Registered on February 1, 2006, 1158 Posts, 19528 Comments

Comment posted by Mia McPherson on February 14, 2010 at 3:26 PM

Steve,

I like the pose of the peewee a lot and how it allows us a nice profile view of the bill. The NR seems to have tamed the worst of the noise in the background.

I'd crop a little more off of the left side and try to lighten the bird just a small amount if this were mine.

Registered on June 25, 2007, 491 Posts, 12566 Comments

Comment posted by Monica Siri on February 14, 2010 at 4:02 PM

Steve,
I like the pose, the perch and the detail. I'd run selective NR on the background too.

Registered on September 20, 2009, 132 Posts, 3764 Comments

Comment posted by Steve Balke on February 14, 2010 at 6:56 PM

Thank you so much for the comments and suggestions, everyone. Here's another try at it: re-cropped (but maintaining the head of the bird at the intersection of rule of thirds lines); selective NR applied (for the third time....more determinedly this time...); selectively brightened (hopefully not too much...). Lookin better to my eyes!

Registered on June 18, 2009, 229 Posts, 2915 Comments

Comment posted by Rob Drummond on February 15, 2010 at 6:09 AM

Nice job on the repost Steve. I don't know the bird but the second one certainly looks more 'natural'

cheers
Rob

Registered on November 8, 2003, 617 Posts, 8267 Comments

Comment posted by David Sparks on February 15, 2010 at 10:20 AM

Steve:
I prefer the repost. The crop and brightening helped.
The white eye ring and slightly larger bill (?) are the major differences I see when comparing the bird to an Eastern Wood-Pewee. Interesting, about the bird's friendliness.

Registered on May 26, 2007, 290 Posts, 4270 Comments