Vermilion Flycatcher

Tjie,
Not to sure what has happened here, initially I thought you had used too much S&H without adding mid tone contrast, but then I noticed that you used fill flash. Is this a large crop as it seems to lacking in detail, and there is quite a noticable halo around the bird. I hope others can come up with some suggestions as this is a fine looking bird

A great pose and super BG Tjie. Could it be that you overcompensated for some blown out reds in PP? Otherwise a great shot, wish we had these up here.

A great little bird. I like the bg and the perch adds a lot of interest. Worth a rework concentrating on that halo and the noise on the tail. If you used the s/h tool, maybe try it selectively instead of on the whole image. I'm sure the shadows and the bright reds made this a very difficult subject to expose. Again, it's a great bird...I'd love to see one someday!

Hi Tjie, the image does look like the PP has been hard push, creating effects you certainly do not wish for within an image. The clarity & detail appears to indicate you have tried to recover the image and certainly if you have used Shadow/highlight that is the wrong to to use, it's too aggressive and there are better ones in your RAW converter which will also give you a better results to. The red I feel could be down too too much saturation being added and that the it's now 'out of gamut', colours. The BKD looks odd too, with the almost painted streaks. I would revisit the RAW and hopefully address the issues. The halo is just a simple masking issue, very easily addressed. I would, if possible loose the LH stick as I feel in 'cages' the subject in.

Just looking at the techs, I would suggest you come down on the ISO as you had plenty of SS, or up the DOF.

Good luck.

Steve

I agree with the others, especially the posterization I see in the jaw and above the eyes, and the halo around the tail. Try hauling back on the saturation and lightening the background. It looks like whatever happened did so in post processing. I would start over and see if the flaws can be cleaned up).

Regardless of the PP issues others mention, this is a great shot.

I agree with the others, great shot, but something is going on with the background which may have created the halo around the bird. I like the comp with the inclusion of the branches.

Hi,

If you pull back on the red channel saturation, you should be able to pick up more detail with less sharpening. There is also a small amount of chromatic aberration on the twigs and excess haloing on the bird and this can be handled in image processing. I do like the pose and framing done by the twigs and doing less processing will produce a very good final image......................Jim