Circle the parking lot…

[LightandShadow]

searching for a place to park. Backyard songbirds at the feeder.

[Tersha]

Lovely Steve, great catch with the wings spread. Do you get many different birds in your backyard?

[LightandShadow]

Not a lot of variety. Mostly finches, sparrows, cardinals, nuthatches, titmouse. A few different woodpeckers, mourning doves, mocking birds, bluebirds, pine warblers. Robins and Blue Jays, though somehow fewer than a few years ago. I’ve heard barred owls and hawks. A couple of weeks ago, we had a grossbeak show up, not sure which variety, migrating through. We once had an indigo bunting. Others nearby report having seen a painted bunting. Several times a year we get flocks of Cedar Waxwings. I have a love/hate relationship with them. They’re beautiful but will leave large amounts of droppings on our car, sometimes several times a day.

[Tersha]

Sounds like quite a lot to me! Strangely, like you, we had more variety of birds a couple of years ago, but we still get quite a few.

[Robert Apple]

The hovering bird has some geat detail for a moving target, nicely done.

[LightandShadow]

Thanks. I have a pre-set: shutter priority @ 1/1000 sec, auto ISO. Most often, that shutter speed does okay for the songbird action. I am generally surprised at Lightroom’s ability to suppress digital noise in my high ISO images. This one had an ISO of 6400. I nearly always use a tripod.

I have used the eye tracking focus on my Canon but it slows down response as it searches for the eye so I’ve generally turned that off.

[Rob Wood (Admin)]

I really like it, but I would be bringing the dodger and the burner into my post production equation quite heavily. 🙂

[LightandShadow]

Thanks. I suppose you mean something along these lines:

In Lightroom, selected each bird (except that bit of tail feather behind the feeder), to brighten each a bit. Selected green color to reduce its exposure. Use LR’s blur function to reduce focus in the green background, removed a leaf that was a bit intrusive and maybe should have done more.

[Dahlia Ambrose]

Hi Steve, this is a beautiful moment. I love it. In your original image, the birds were slightly underexposed. I like how you have increased the exposure on the birds in the second edit, but the background blur was not necessary I think in my opinion. It looks a bit overdone. The leaves add to the environmental story. The only thing that distracts me is the blue in the background that can be toned down a bit. Not sure what you think 🙂

[Rob Wood (Admin)]

Yeah, I certainly think that makes it easier to snap to the subject.

[Anne Hornsby]

Your edits really make it, Steve.  Cool catch.

[Robert Apple]

Agree with Dahlia on the edit.

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