robin (1 Viewer)

[Surreybirder]

I have a very old scope. This effort was taken in my garden using a Fuji finepix 2400, hand held.
I know everyone will say that I need to attach the camera to the scope, but any other advice?

 

[paula]

A very good effort and lots of potential for the picture.
It is an unusual picture in that the subject, from beak to tail, and the perch form a vertical line!
In my opinion, the subject would be nicer and more balanced if it was centred in the portrait frame and the rest cropped away.
Some sharpening would also be necessary as the picture is very soft.
My Rating: 1 Star.

 

[Andy Bright]

I'm usually the very last person to suggest a centralised bird, but this chap could do with a bit more room behind him. Easily done in Photopshop (enlarge canvas to the left, then fill it by rubber-stamp/clone or marquee tool cut & paste... then flatten/merge layers). I'm not sure if this critique section should be aimed at in-computer improvements or getting the composition right in the field.
Given that there's only a tiny bit of foliage, it's probably more distracting than interesting.... though it does give the impression that the bird is looking at it? With the intruding foliage removed, maybe slighlty less headroom for the bird would be more appropriate.
Still on in-computer improvemts... a visit to levels may be an idea to brighten it up a bit and give it more punch, the sky looks a bit murky.
Slight vignetting in bottom right, could be cleaned up with a number of methods.... clone tool with largish soft brush and low opacity may be the quickest.
Very good shot considering it's a handheld camera against the eyepiece.
Andy

 

[Andy Bright]

Here's my stab at it, hope you don't mind. I left the foliage in.... I missed it when I removed it
Andy

 

[Surreybirder]

thanks

thanks, Andy and Paula!
Very instructive.
I left the patch of foliage in because I thought it might look better if the robin was looking at something... but I agree that it's probably just a distraction and adds nothing to the composition. I cut the photo close behind the bird as there were various messy looking twigs that just confused the image. But it's amazing what you can do with the clone tool, Andy! (Did you sharpen the image, too, Andy? The feathers look a bit crisper.)

 

[bcurrie]

Hi Surreybirder,

I am always amazed that people like you can get this good of a shot hand held up to a scope. Good job. Well, you already know about attaching the camera to the scope. There is vignetting in the lower right which is easily corrected with the clone/rubber stamp tool on a photo like this. The bird is soft, so need to use USM, but I would not go too heavy on it. I would also suggest lightening the whole photo. I do like it with more room behind it as Andy has done. For that leaf part in the upper right, I would suggest cloning it out entirely and comparing the two. As is, I find it detracting from the bird. Finally I would suggest to use Neat Image on this. I have found that it works very well on a photo like this with lots of blue sky. If you do not have it, just do an Internet search for Neat Image. It is a free download.

Rating: 1 star