Lou Karcher  

Nesting Robin by Lou Karcher

May 2020 - Nesting Robin

About the Image(s)

“Mrs. Robin" will be nesting outside our bedroom window for 2 weeks. Shot with a Nikon D500 & a Nikkor 80-400 4.5-5.6 ED VR lens. Shot hand-held, 1/500, f 5.6, ISO 2000, effective focal length 510 mm (1.5 crop factor camera), focus distance 8.2 feet. Cropped image then reduced noise, increased brightness and exposure 1/4 stop, sharpened, and used a mild vignette to darken the holly leaves.

This round’s discussion is now closed!
5 comments posted

Carol Sheppard   Carol Sheppard
(Group 95)
Nice capture of the Robin, catchlights in the eyes and all. At iso 2000, there is still a lotmof grain, and I see you said you reduced noise. Did you then sharpen it back up? That might have re-introduced the noise factor.

I might look at a crop along the bottom to eliminate the out of focus leaves and bring the focus in tighter on your main subject. Good strong colors and nice sharp head!   Posted: 05/15/2020 22:34:39
 
I did sharpen afterwards; didn't know that could re-introduce noise. Thanks!   Posted: 05/16/2020 15:39:22
Bob Crocker   Bob Crocker
(Group 57)
Nice image, Lou. She looks happy in her new home. Good composition; I like the tilt of the head, and as Carol mentioned, nice that you captured the eye catch lights. So many bird shots I see have totally black eyes. Noise can be such pain to deal with, and such a balancing act with sharpening. Don't know what software you are using but maybe one of the new 'dedicated' noise reduction packages might handle this issue. I hear Topaz Denoise AI is pretty amazing.   Posted: 05/17/2020 15:32:04
 
Thanks, Bob. Will look into it.   Posted: 05/17/2020 20:41:28
Doug Wolters   Doug Wolters
(Groups 10 & 80)
I love the bird! Very well in focus. Could you change your shooting angle a bit to move the out of focus green off the bird?

I think the image would benefit by cropping the top & right, and just a bit of the bottom.   Posted: 05/21/2020 20:38:21