Bud Ralston
November 2024 - Red Wing Blsckbird
Original
About the Image(s)
A red-winged blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus) strikes a threatening pose to warn off rivals from his chosen area to sing for a mate.
Nikon Z9, Nikon Z100-400 f/4.5-5.6 VR S, 1/640 @ f/5.6, ISO 2500400mm, +1 EV
I started by using the DeNoise feature in Lightroom Classic as a first step. I cropped down to the one bird, eliminating the OOF rival. Then I moved the Basic sliders slightly, increasing Texture to bring out some feather detail. I dropped Luminance in the color mixer @ 20 points in Red, Orange, and Yellow sliders because those feather colors were so bright they blew out the details. I adjusted the midtones to decrease highlights and bring out the shadows. Then I sharpened overall and added a -10 vignette.
3 comments posted
An attractive image. The white reeds in the background give it an artsy look. I'm not sure the processing helped a lot. The final image still is not very sharp and still some noise. But that's not a criticism - images don't have to be perfect to work. And this one works for me. Posted: 11/12/2024 16:22:06
The Red-wing Blackbird is exceptionally sharp and certainly strikes an aggressive pose. But even though it is blurred it still seems distracting. However if you use Lightroom, in the tool panel there is section marked Lens Blur. There you can apply various levels of blur to the background. It takes some experimenting to get the hang of it, but you can do some quite amazing things with it--give it a try. Posted: 11/16/2024 00:33:44
What a balancing act! I find these guys quite annoying (no wonder 4 and 20 were baked in a pie), but they are challenging (for me) to get good feather detail with all that blackness.
Maybe it's my newbie ignorance showing again, but I don't find the background all that distracting. Mr Blackbird is perfectly poised on his perch (say THAT 3 x fast!), and maybe I would photoshop out that long stem to the left, the one that is almost in focus (that's a bit distracting as the rest all match the blurriness of the background).
Your original, even though the second one is out of focus, is interesting. Mr. Subject Blackbird appears to be trying to convince Mr. Blurry Blackbird of something that he just wasn't interested in hearing :-)
Posted: 11/20/2024 17:12:35