Posted by Ron McCombe on December 11, 2009 at 9:39 PM
I took this in my garden yesterday, I like these little birds, just wish they would be still a little more often
Canon 50D canon 300mm f2.8 lens f2,8, 1/250sec ISO 200
Posted by Ian Mason on December 12, 2009 at 6:24 AM
Cracking little bird posing nicely for you. Nice background too There appears to be some flattening off of the feather detail, possibly due to shadow/highlights or similar?
Posted by Ian Macdermott on December 12, 2009 at 5:50 PM
Hi Ron,
agree with Ians comments with regard to the bird and pose but the processing looks a bit off
Posted by John Robinson on December 12, 2009 at 6:07 PM
Ron
Can you explain what you do with image when it comes off the card. There is something not quite right with the processing and I reckon we can sort it.(Trying to help ) It could even be white balance settings in the camera. I think the originals may be ok but there is somnething going wrong somewhere and it is a shame as the basic shots are good.
Cheers
John
Posted by Mike Andrews on December 13, 2009 at 10:50 AM
A blue cast on my monitor, which is spoiling a good shot.
There are better people to offer advice than me, but they are worth listening to.
Posted by Ron McCombe on December 13, 2009 at 12:17 PM
Hi John
I have uploaded the original picture. I use CS3 to process
I cropped the picture
I have used shadows and highlights a little to light up the eye area
Dodge and burn at 1% to bring out the finer detail in the feathers
Noise ninja to reduce noise and sharpen
AWB
Posted by John Robinson on December 13, 2009 at 1:06 PM
Hi Ron
That's a heck of a crop ! You did well in some respects to get what you did for posting..
The original seems over exposed with the whites blown badly. The highlight and shadow toolhave made the rest of the bird appear more distinct ,but that and the dodge and burn tool can change the colout balance if its over done. The noise reduction and sharpening has flattened the detail because again the image was so small to start with.
I think basically the problem has come from the very small size of the bird in the overall image, and there may even be a slight blueish cast to the original which has been emphasised.You don't say what white balance you were on. My Nikon comes out with wierd effects if i have it on auto for example.
You did well though with that sized bird in the image.
Cheers
John
Posted by Ron McCombe on December 13, 2009 at 1:12 PM
Lets start from the shooting aspect, why f2.8? you could have increased the ISO to 400 to give you f4 or even ISO640 to gain a little extra DoF...
On the processing side you don't say if you shot in RAW or not if you did then you may be able to rescue a bit more from the image. As John says that is a massive crop and IMO far too much, you should be trying to obtain a closer viewpoint and working in your garden should give you control and the advantage. The whites are blown indicating that the image is overexposed, I have to be honest here I dislike the Shadow/Highlight tool in PS, the recovery sliders in ACR and other converters give far, far better results.... (hint here ACR can be used on files other than RAW)....
Hope this helps and is not sounding too negative.
Phil
Posted by Ron McCombe on December 13, 2009 at 6:26 PM
Thanks Phil
Posted by Paul Rosser on December 15, 2009 at 3:56 PM
Hi Ron, I too have a Canon 50D, and from my experience, 'shooting' these birds, it pays to under expose by upto 1 stop to prevent the white cheeks from blowing out. I use a Sigma 150-500mm lens though! Nice detail in the final crop though.
Regards,
Paul.
Discussion
10 repliesCanon 50D canon 300mm f2.8 lens f2,8, 1/250sec ISO 200
agree with Ians comments with regard to the bird and pose but the processing looks a bit off
Can you explain what you do with image when it comes off the card. There is something not quite right with the processing and I reckon we can sort it.(Trying to help ) It could even be white balance settings in the camera. I think the originals may be ok but there is somnething going wrong somewhere and it is a shame as the basic shots are good.
Cheers
John
There are better people to offer advice than me, but they are worth listening to.
I have uploaded the original picture. I use CS3 to process
I cropped the picture
I have used shadows and highlights a little to light up the eye area
Dodge and burn at 1% to bring out the finer detail in the feathers
Noise ninja to reduce noise and sharpen
AWB
That's a heck of a crop ! You did well in some respects to get what you did for posting..
The original seems over exposed with the whites blown badly. The highlight and shadow toolhave made the rest of the bird appear more distinct ,but that and the dodge and burn tool can change the colout balance if its over done. The noise reduction and sharpening has flattened the detail because again the image was so small to start with.
I think basically the problem has come from the very small size of the bird in the overall image, and there may even be a slight blueish cast to the original which has been emphasised.You don't say what white balance you were on. My Nikon comes out with wierd effects if i have it on auto for example.
You did well though with that sized bird in the image.
Cheers
John
Ron
Lets start from the shooting aspect, why f2.8? you could have increased the ISO to 400 to give you f4 or even ISO640 to gain a little extra DoF...
On the processing side you don't say if you shot in RAW or not if you did then you may be able to rescue a bit more from the image. As John says that is a massive crop and IMO far too much, you should be trying to obtain a closer viewpoint and working in your garden should give you control and the advantage. The whites are blown indicating that the image is overexposed, I have to be honest here I dislike the Shadow/Highlight tool in PS, the recovery sliders in ACR and other converters give far, far better results.... (hint here ACR can be used on files other than RAW)....
Hope this helps and is not sounding too negative.
Phil
Regards,
Paul.