Great Tit

dakid

dakid

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Managed to get this yesterday while trying out some of my friends' big lenses. This one was caught with a Sigma 100-300mm f/4 with 1.4x TC.

Was just wondering whether people have any particular tips for improving this kind of photo, i.e. a bird feeding.

Also, I have cropped it down (see the thumbnail at the bottom for the original framing) so tips on cropping would be gratefully received as well.


Post-processing


Uncropped
great_tit_uncropped_thumbnail.jpg
 
dakid said:
Managed to get this yesterday while trying out some of my friends' big lenses. This one was caught with a Sigma 100-300mm f/4 with 1.4x TC.

Was just wondering whether people have any particular tips for improving this kind of photo, i.e. a bird feeding.
Click to expand...

First let me say it's better than any of mine yesterday (at almost exactly the same time spookily) trying the same thing with a shorter focal length lens...

It's a bit soft. You've used ISO 800 and f/5.6 indicating it was dark, so a good shot in the circumstances... BUT the wide aperture has also given you very shallow depth of field. If you look at the feeder, the front is in focus and the rear is well out of focus. The bird is somewhere in between. So my tip fwiw is to get the eyes in focus - but I do appreciate how difficult this was yesterday :)
 
Not bad but the white balance is way off imo..I also wouldn't have centralised the crop like that..I would have positioned it off to one side,a bit like the uncropped one.
 
Any better?

great_tit_less_blue2.jpg
 
brianfarrell said:
First let me say it's better than any of mine yesterday (at almost exactly the same time spookily) trying the same thing with a shorter focal length lens...
Click to expand...

I'm staggered at how it doesn't even fill a frame on a 1.6x crop sensor with 300mm lens and a 1.4x converter. That's almost 700mm on a full-frame!!

brianfarrell said:
It's a bit soft. You've used ISO 800 and f/5.6 indicating it was dark, so a good shot in the circumstances... BUT the wide aperture has also given you very shallow depth of field. If you look at the feeder, the front is in focus and the rear is well out of focus. The bird is somewhere in between. So my tip fwiw is to get the eyes in focus - but I do appreciate how difficult this was yesterday :)
Click to expand...

God, yes ... the light was awful yesterday! Some of the softness is probably due to my processing ... I ran it through noise ninja to try and reduce the noise a bit, but I think I was a bit overzealous. The image I just posted hopefully also resolves that a little bit.

Yes, the eyes being in focus is something I was hoping for, but I'm amazed at how miniscule the depth of field is at that distance with a long focal length. Incredible. Thanks for the tips though ... will try to remember for next time :)
 
The crop is as good as you'll get I think, maybe a bit more off the right of the pic, but its horses for courses with a shot like this.

I've has a mess with the levels, mainly guess work as I'm no expert, but I think it looks a bit more colourful.

I've also dodged the eyes a bit and done some selective sharpening.

Hope you dont mind !

Nice pic btw !!

great_tit_less_blue2.jpg
 
Wow ... that's pretty extreme! :)

The increase in saturation definitely gives it a warmer feel which I like, but I'm not sure there's not a little too much of a green cast now.

Still, definitely something to think about ... I shall definitely have to play around with a greater saturation overall.
 
dakid said:
Wow ... that's pretty extreme! :)

The increase in saturation definitely gives it a warmer feel which I like, but I'm not sure there's not a little too much of a green cast now.
Still, definitely something to think about ... I shall definitely have to play around with a greater saturation overall.
Click to expand...

That may be because your eyes were used to the colours in the original image.
 
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