Prickly Perch Photo

Photographer’s Note

Just one brief hour of sunshine after several days of dull, overcast weather, and now we're back to dull with a slight drizzle. This house sparrow - passer domesticus - was making merry with a bunch of his friends in the thick, thorny bushes while the sun lasted. Unfortunately for me none of them decided to come up and sit in the higher branches, so I had to make do with what I could grab in between the thorny stems.
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Oops, forgot the details: Crop, Colours +5, Saturation +10, Brightness +5, USM, resize (a little).

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Critiques | Translate

Liora (1857) 2003-12-05 10:49

Cute! Very good technique - good colors and very good texture.
Well captured!

Darren (6819) 2003-12-05 11:02

This is really good. I feel had you used an even better lens (f4, or even 2.8), you really would have been able to throw the background into a blur, but as it is, it looks great still. Very nice expsoure and nice details, although it does appear to be a little oversharpened. Good work.

Edit - I notice now that you used an f/11 aperture, even going a stop less (f8) would help throw the background out a little more. I am assuming you could go as wide as f/5.6, but probably a wide range zoom like yours would suffer with detail if you did that.

carper (64962) 2003-12-05 11:23

Ja Bennte,

This is very nice. This is good. The subject is sharp, the dof is good. Good capture. Also a good picture. well done

seiliv (317) 2003-12-05 11:51

This was beautiful Bente. The colors, tones of red, directions, details and so on.

About the backgroud, I like it as it is.. So well done.

Didi (36182) 2003-12-05 12:28

Je voudrai connaitre sur quelle sensibilité ISO était réglé votre Canon, parce que l'image contient un peu de bruit. peut être est ce dû à la compression JPEG.
En dehors de cette remarque votre photo est très bien composée y compris la couleur rouge du fond.

I would like to know on which ISO sensitivity was regulated your Canon, because the image contains a little noise can be is this due to compression JPEG. Apart from this remark your photograph is very quite made up including the red color of the bottom.

HARDCHRIS (2848) 2003-12-05 12:42

The sharpness is wonderfull and the colours are well chosen You have made good use of DOF.However there is some noise visible on the background apart from that nicely done.
Christian

mogens-j (56) 2003-12-05 13:17

Hi Bente, this is a very good picture. Good to see that you are happy with your new camera and lens (I like mine too).

I really do like the picture, the warm colours and never mind the rest of the bird. Though I have to agree with Didi and Hardchris – there is a little noise in the picture. Not only in the background but also in the chest area of the bird. Some feathers are too glimmery – comes typically from too much USM. The USM is a very good tool but it has to be handled gently. Unfortunately you do not mention the treatment in your note so I have to guess. Try do add a gausian blur +0,7 or +1, it may help. Remember, a great picture do not necessarily have to be razor sharp.

Motrem (2392) 2003-12-05 13:48

This bird is colored well, is it really a sparrow? In Quebec, their colours are more mat. If it is the only one whom you seized you made a success, your photo very well consists, it is magnificent with this small light in the eye.
Cet oiseau est bien coloré, est-ce vraiment un moineau? Au Québec, leurs couleurs sont plus ternes. Si c'est le seul que vous avez saisi vous avez réussi, votre photo est très bien composé, c'est superbe avec cette petite lumière dans l'oeil.

RobBrown (1789) 2003-12-05 13:56

New toy working well here,Head is nice and sharp, surrounding area definatley has noise in it, just a thought how much crop and enlargement have you appllied to it,or have you used a blurr tool on the rest of the image to highlight the sparrow?

Jeppe (18623) 2003-12-05 14:37

A perfect shot Bente. I like the details with the thorns and the unsharp beeries behind - congratulation.

jrj (34779) 2003-12-06 5:19

Very, very, nice picture of an "ordinaire" sparrow. Well composed and shot from a very short distance I think. Splendid job.

zto (292) 2003-12-09 14:17

This sure is a beauty Bente. I like the thorn bushes, it adds life to it it think. My own close up is actually rather boring, especially compered to this one. I like the DOF you have and the colour and detail of the bird is really nice.

dob_31 (0) 2003-12-10 22:52

The details and colors on this bird are amazing, the clear and bold. I like the way you framed the photo. Well seen!

amitai (867) 2004-02-28 10:53

wonderful portrait and not the usual background I love it.

optic (0) 2004-10-18 20:05

Another great picture Bente ! the bird is beautifull, nice background, you did a perfect work!
Congratulations