Junco on a butterfly bush: I took this this afternoon. It was snowing like crazy and the light wasn't great, but I like the look of the snow. What I am not sure is if this works not...

Country's Mama Loc: Michigan

I took this this afternoon. It was snowing like crazy and the light wasn't great, but I like the look of the snow. What I am not sure is if this works not being tack sharp with every feather showing.
I am also excited that I learned how to minimize chromatic Aberration fairly easily in PSE. The more I learn the more I realize how much I don't know. :-D There was a lot of magenta and green around the butterfly bush and the top of the Junco. For those interested this is the tutorial I found that helped.
http://www.photoshopelementsuser.com/videofiles/20101026-ChromaticAberration.mov

Critique away. If you edit please explain why and how you did it.

edgorm Loc: Rockaway, New York

The only thing I didn't like was the lack of separation between the snow on the branch and the background. Took the liberty of adjusting the contrast and highlights and then doing a little selective local adjustment in some areas.

jrb1213 Loc: McDonough GEorgia

Since I like nature/animal photography the first thing I did after downloading was to look at the face and eye. You have some head movement, and the eye isn't in focus. Granted it may not have been you reason for taking the picture but you should have had enough light to get the depth of field and the faster shutter speed you needed.
Even with those nitpicking items in mind this is still a very good photograph.

Heirloom Tomato Loc: Oregon

I love this. So elegant and interesting, and I like the composition. I made a few changes, only for your viewing and consideration, I don't know if they are improvements or not. I brought down highlights a bit and slightly adjusted midtones to isolate the branches a bit from the background. I also saw a few faint light gray verticals in the upper background, which I removed. Autosharpened. I won't know if I think it's better until it is posted. I like the original very much.

Thanks for posting the tip, I'm going to watch that right now!

Nightski

Nicely composed and exposed, but not tack sharp. It's a challenge with falling snow.

Country's Mama Loc: Michigan

jrb1213 wrote:

Since I like nature/animal photography the first thing I did after downloading was to look at the face and eye. You have some head movement, and the eye isn't in focus. Granted it may not have been you reason for taking the picture but you should have had enough light to get the depth of field and the faster shutter speed you needed.
Even with those nitpicking items in mind this is still a very good photograph.

I have never been able to get a decent photo of the birds on an over cast day. If I get the shutter speed up I have to raise the iso so much I have a lot of noise. I don't know what I am doing wrong, but to get decent pictures I need the sun out or get the flash out and this guy was too far away for the flash. I had the ISO at 320, f/5 and shutter speed was 1/320 and had the zoom out to 210mm. I don't know what else I can do. Even at this it was underexposed and I had to bring it back in raw.

Country's Mama Loc: Michigan

edgorm wrote:

The only thing I didn't like was the lack of separation between the snow on the branch and the background. Took the liberty of adjusting the contrast and highlights and then doing a little selective local adjustment in some areas.

I think you are right that there needs to be more separation. Thank you for giving it a go.

Country's Mama Loc: Michigan

Heirloom Tomato wrote:

I love this. So elegant and interesting, and I lik... (show quote)

Thank you for your suggestions. I can live without the vertical stripes (my fence) the way you have done it. I like that it still has some depth. I also like that when you adjusted to bring the branches out my snow is still white. I will have to go play some more with this. Do you think the lack of crispness in the bird is a problem? Or does it speak to the kind of day it is and even with my eyes nothing is very clear out there with the snow we are getting.

Country's Mama Loc: Michigan

Nightski wrote:

Nicely composed and exposed, but not tack sharp. It's a challenge with falling snow.

Thank you. Boy tell me about the focus with the snow. But I think the problem here is I am not getting my shutter speed up fast enough, but I am not getting enough light either. I guess just to play around I should have cranked the iso way up and see what I got.

edgorm Loc: Rockaway, New York

Overcast means flat lighting and low contrast. Shooting at a small aperture will increase the contrast but slow your shutter speed to compensate. Increasing ISO might help but then there is the risk of too much noise. Tough problem. Personally, I would go for the small aperture, an adequate shutter speed in relation to my focal length and try to fix the noise in post.

Heirloom Tomato Loc: Oregon

Country's Mama wrote:

Thank you for your suggestions. I can live without the vertical stripes (my fence) the way you have done it. I like that it still has some depth. I also like that when you adjusted to bring the branches out my snow is still white. I will have to go play some more with this. Do you think the lack of crispness in the bird is a problem? Or does it speak to the kind of day it is and even with my eyes nothing is very clear out there with the snow we are getting.

The lack of crispness in the bird didn't bother me at all. He was sharp enough for my eyes, especially in the snowy conditions. I liked it better without the faint fence lines, but I made sure to leave the dark area at the top so you could see the falling white snow in that area. It's a pretty shot!

Country's Mama Loc: Michigan

Heirloom Tomato wrote:

The lack of crispness in the bird didn't bother me at all. He was sharp enough for my eyes, especially in the snowy conditions. I liked it better without the faint fence lines, but I made sure to leave the dark area at the top so you could see the falling white snow in that area. It's a pretty shot!

Thank you. It was a pretty day, though I think it is going to get ugly tonight.

Heirloom Tomato Loc: Oregon

Country's Mama wrote:

Thank you. It was a pretty day, though I think it is going to get ugly tonight.

I feel for all of you. We had a nasty taste of it a few weeks ago. Our power bills came yesterday. OUCH!!!! Highest ones ever.

Country's Mama Loc: Michigan

edgorm wrote:

Overcast means flat lighting and low contrast. Shooting at a small aperture will increase the contrast but slow your shutter speed to compensate. Increasing ISO might help but then there is the risk of too much noise. Tough problem. Personally, I would go for the small aperture, an adequate shutter speed in relation to my focal length and try to fix the noise in post.

Shooting at the distance I was hand held, because those birds don't cooperate, I had to have at least 1/200 shutter speed. I will play again tomorrow if I can get away with opening a window without dropping the temps in the house too far. :-D
Better equipment would help, but I have to learn to get along with what I have for now.

jrb1213 Loc: McDonough GEorgia

You did nothing wrong. Not only did you have to work within the parameters of the ISO, shutter speed and f stop, but you also had noise to consider.