7/27/2024
Another post about the photo challenge I am participating in this year.
Let's start this update off by covering how I did in June. June's challenge was eye-level. You needed to get on the bird's level and photograph it. The classic way to do this is to lay down and photograph something at ground level. This results in a very blurry foreground and, if there is nothing directly behind the bird sticking up, a very blurry background. Ideally, you end up with a thin focal plane that passes through the bird and everything else is creamy smooth. So, how did I do? Poor, I guess.
From a challenge point-of-view, it is spot-on. From a technical point-of-view, there are some difficulties with the photo. The feedback involved the following major items:
The foreground has distracting white blotches that interfere with the full reflection of the bird
There is a large bright spot directly behind the bird
The is some noise in the image
There is some question about the sharpness of the bird
Let's address this as a whole. This spring, there had not been a lot of rainfall. The creek bed was littered with leaves. Normally, these would have all been washed out by the time I took this photo. The bird had just been up in some sunlight before hopping down into this small pool and singing. The bird is still in light, but it is heavily filtered by some trees behind me. What does all this mean? It means there were leaves and other debris in the water, light is strongly hitting a rock behind the bird but the bird is more shadowed, and the image was slightly underexposed. This lead to a higher noise image that is interfering with the overall sharpness of the bird. It is in focus, but there is some detail loss due to the noise.
What could have been done here? Not much, really. About the only thing that can be addressed post-shot is the overall noise in the image. I was trying to avoid an over-sharpened image and was using a tool that was new to me, at the time, to remove noise. This would be the Adobe LR noise reduction tool. It is less harsh than the Topaz tool or especially the DXO tool. Not aggressively addressing noise meant there was some left in the image. This is particularly evident in the dark area above the bird and maybe somewhat in the bird. The issue with aggressively clearing out noise on a waterthrush is that the tools tend to treat the back and wing feathers as background and removes all detail from them. It turns noise reduction into a balancing act. The LR tool does not suffer from this as much, and I opted for it over the more aggressive tools. Other than this, cleaning out the debris in the water is not going to restore the reflection of the bird in the water. The large bright spot is hopeless, barring a complete cloning out of it. Reducing brightness on it will only turn it gray.
In the end, I still love the image. I love the intimate moment I got of the bird, and it will still go down as one of my favorite shots from the year. It just will not be good for this challenge. I have plenty of other shots that are technically better. I am just overly attached to this image and wanted to submit it. Something like this Rock Ptarmigan would have fared better.
This brings us to July. There is a lot of pressure for July. When I looked at the monthly challenges, this was one of the ones I circled as being difficult. The challenge is a "birdscape". Something that focuses on the habitat of the bird, or at least shows the bird in its habitat. Tight portraits are not what this month is about. Capturing a bird on a simple perch is not going to cut it. You need the bird in its habitat, and the habitat needs to be pleasing to the eye. This is not something you can go out and just setup. Sure, you can imagine the things you want, but, typically, it is not the type of thing you can coax a bird into. You have to find them there. As if the difficulty was not high enough, I have the added pressure of being labeled as a habitat shooter. I really only have one image to blame for this. It was actually my first Top 100 placement for Audubon.
Looking at it now, it has a few technical issues, but it was shot a number of years ago. We are all learning. It is a shot you could easily remove the bird from, and it would still provide some interest as a photo. In my opinion, it does not always have to be like this. The bird does not have to be small in frame. A "birdscape" just needs to show what the bird's habitat looks like, and the habitat needs to be of some interest.
With this in mind, here are the shots I originally selected out for consideration this month.
I am not actually going to submit any of these. I think they all show the bird's habitat well. None really meet the criteria of being able to remove the bird and still have an interesting photo. though. Does that have to be a prerequisite? I do not know, but it is what I was aiming for. These were all taken prior to this month, and I spent a lot of time trying to capture birds in interesting shots. You can check out my other blog post for this month to see what else I captured.
Which just leaves the question of, "what am I going to submit?" A Sedge Wren.
I think this photo has some technical issues. The first would be the composition. The bird could be better placed within the photo. Overall, I feel the brightness of the flowers competes with attention for the bird a bit. I have tried to address this, but I am afraid of introducing a stark imbalance between the brightness of the bid versus the rest of the image. It does no good if the image looks unrealistic. Finally, the bird could have been isolated in the flowers a bit better. The yellow bleeding in at the top of the bird's head is a little distracting. We will see how it rates. Hopefully it is not another dud.
Images need to be submitted in a few days; so, there is not much time to figure things out. I will keep you posted.
Thanks for reading,
Mike
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