Mediocre shots of Blackbirds

[DanK]

A bird photographer I am not.

I went for a walk looking for big water birds and found instead lots of little red-wing blackbirds. I tried to take a bunch. None are very good. The biggest problem was me, but in addition, 400mm (my max) wasn't long enough, so I had to crop most of the shots too much. I was also shooting black against a bright background, so I had to bring up the floor a lot, which made visible a lot of color and luminance noise, which I then had to smooth out. (I was using a 7D generation 1). Still, C&C welcome.

[Geoff F]

The first one will come good if you clone out that little bit of leaf in the top right corner.

I think I would crop a bit off the right side in the second image to lose those distractions from the faint out of focus stem and bright spot in the bottom right corner. Also clone the bottom left bit of leaf and possibly clean up that out of focus area on the main stem near the bottom.

[DanK]

Good suggestions, thanks. I made all of the changes other than the last (the out-of-focus grass stem) and made some additional edits to the first, making the leaves less obvious (dropped the luminance and saturation) and the sky a bit bluer.

[Dave Humphries]

They look like very tricky subjects in such harsh light Dan,

They are sharper than I would have managed, I'm sure.

[Shadowman]

Nice bird shots.

[Chrisclick]

Good shots, Dan. I've haven't seen these birds before - handsome devils, aren't they!? That red/tangerine flash on the wing is brilliant!

You did a good job in harsh light. This looks to be mid-morning, 10 or 11 am? (in Australian light, that is). Maybe go out a bit earlier or, much later.

[DanK]

Thanks. Yes, that's exactly when it was. I knew it wasn't a good time, but I happened to be free then.


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[Wavelength]

They are nice images; the pose in #2 is special

[bnnrcn]

Considering the hard shooting conditions , they are very nice and successful shots Dan

[IzzieK]

For a non-bird shooter you did very well, Dan...the first post have two un-shown images btw.

[lesno1]

If thats what you call mediocre i cant wait to see some of your good work

[DanK]

Izzie and Les,

many thanks. Izzie, without thinking, I deleted the original images from Smugmug, so the links here for the original photos went dead.

Dan