Stonechat

On the few occasions I've managed to get any reasonable images of Stonechats, they are always of a bird perched on brambles etc. On this occasion I was sat using a bag hide to try to get some redwings when this fella started rooting about on the banking next to me. He flew to the top of the bank and I just managed to get myself twisted enough to line up the camera. No option other than to shoot through the vegetation and crop off the feet but overall I was fairly pleased with the result.
500mm
exp 1/1400 @f8 iso 250

I think there is too much red in this shot and it looks a bit grainy for iso 250. I do like the pose and comp. Exposure is dead on.

Edwin Kats

Hi, this looks very grainy in the redy brown areas. I think you need to elimate the noise and tone down the reds somewhat. The composition works though.

Ian

Hi Lawrence
The old "grain " which used to be "noise " is up again but to be really honest at this size on this web page it looks fine to me.
I have downloaded the pic and blown it up 4 or 5 times and the noise is there. I should think it is. These pics on this site are meant to be viewed as they are on the page. Or are they ?I I like this one anyway. If people are seeing obtrusive noise on this picture then I will be worried about posting any more because most of mine are far worse than this ! My only minor suggestion would be to drop the gamma a bit.
Cheers
JohnR

It's not the noise I'm worried about John. It's the amount of noise visible at iso 250.

Edwin Kats

I like this a lot, but my first thought was that it was a bit over saturated (perhaps its really a bit red as sugested by Edwin)

Hi Robert nice capture and the nits have been covered.

Nits covered but still a good looking image.

Lee

Sorry this doesn’t work for me the, the foreground, for me anyway, is rather overpowering and unnatural.

The detail in the stonechat is right on the button, as is the exposure etc..

Sorry not to have replied sooner but I've been away with work. OK, first isue is the colour and looking at this on my works monitor it does look a bit strong to me too. The image was taken in late afternoon light which was actually quite strong. There was no saturation added in photoshop but I probably did make an adjustment in DPP raw conversion. I may have inadvertently put too much.
I found the comments regarding the grain/noise issue interesting. A couple of reviewers have commented that the exposure is spot on ----- it wasn't. As I mentioned in the post this was a chance image and my normal way of operating when this type of opportunity occurs is to take at least one image asap and then make any adjustments to exposure if I'm given the time for any subsequent shots. Having been targeting Redwings in a grazed field I was shooting AV so when I was presented with this shot the bright sky over influenced the exp (1/1400 @f8 !! in Wales? I don't think so) so this had to be rescued in conversion - hence the 'noise'. I think this perfectly illustrates the importance of getting the exposure correct at the point of capture and not relying on post processing.
Many thanks for all the comments.
Robert.