LittleRed

Laid up with a broken knee, weather is bad (seems like every day), gotta keep busy so spent some time trying to catch a fair to middling pic of a small songbird called a Common Redpoll (these little buggers are fast). Got a few, not as good as I hoped for but considering the weather conditions (heavy overcast, scattered snow squalls etc) they didn't turn out too bad. Wish I could have lessened the ISO but you take and use what the Lord giveth. I do not use any super PP program just a cheapy called PhotoPad and only spend less than a minute on each pic. So heres a few pics of my efforts. Critique is welcome as always. But I do realize that they are quite noisy.
But you never learn by not listening, right!!!

All pics taken using a Canon 90D with a Canon 100-400 Mark II

Little Red (Ron)

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abc1234 Loc: Elk Grove Village, Illinois

Sorry to hear about the knee and hope it heals quickly and completely. I use Lightroom and could have cleaned up each of these in less than a minute too. Another minute could have made these shots outstanding. Shooting with a Canon 90D deserves better.

kpmac Loc: Ragley, La

Really nice compositions.

LittleRed

Alas I agree that by using a much better PP program these pictures could be much more presentable. But I am not really interested in working with any upscale program like Lightroom. My main interest is as a Naturalist/Birder who uses my camera to record all wildlife I see. This data is then recorded with photos to websites such as iNaturalist and eBird (Cornell University). Normally I’m not really concerned as to the how good/bad my photos are but rather the data it contains. But I’m always interested in how to improve my picture taking ability. In this case I was just happy to be able to catch the little scoundrels on the wing. Like I said it was very overcast/dark with periods of heavy snow during this shoot. If the present flock sticks around for much better weather I’ll try and give it another go. (However the forecast shows basically no improvement for the next week or so with a call for more snow about the 10th of this month)🤬🤬🤬🤬.
I thank you kindly looking in and giving me your observation, tis appreciated.

LittleRed (Ron)

LittleRed

Thank you kpmac for looking and commenting.

LittleRed (Ron)

abc1234 Loc: Elk Grove Village, Illinois

Thank you for your explanation. I now understand where you are coming from. You are lucky to have that variety. Ninety percent of what I get on my feeders are sparrows and finches. The state bird here is the cardinal. I might see one or two of them annually. I always like photographing birds even thou these are very difficult because they are so fast.

photogeneralist Loc: Lopez Island Washington State

Starting with B&W film in my own darkroom , I learned that grain (and noise?) detracts very little from the perceived sharpness of a photo if the grain edges are crisply rendered. I view the grain phobia that I perceive among many as popularly overblown. Therefore, I think that your use of a "cheapy" post processing app to be NOT a disadvantage. Rather it seems me that your use of the cropping capability, that your "Cheapy" software must have, to be unfortunately utilized. It seems to me that each of the otherwise technically quite good photos could have been improved by providing a liittle more gazing space between the bird and the photo edge that is directly in front of the bird.

I know that my opinions are just that and only that and may be not mainstream but I felt it to be appropriate to share them even if only to offer the info that there's another way of thinking about the questions implied in your post.

Curmudgeon Loc: SE Arizona

For the use you put them to, they are more than adequate.

Chicago312 Loc: Western suburb, Chicago

Very nice photos. I would be quite pleased if I had been able to capture these shots. A few great photos are better than a hundred blurry shots.

LittleRed

Yes I agree that it would be better if I gave my feathered friends a wee more room. I guess that’s one of my failings, making the subject “fill the frame”. A bit of a bad habit but in some ways necessary for my purpose. Most of my pics are attached to birding reports sent to the eBird (Cornell Lab) website. These pics are then included in the Macaulay Library database which in turn is the basis for the photo recognition app Merlin. So I think in my case the size I show is a better requirement for the use intended. For anybody looking to ID any bird they photograph that they don’t know this is a lifesaver. It’s quite accurate and getting better as the number of pics in the library increases. Happily I know that in a small way I’m making that happen. (Sadly the Merlin program is only available on mobile devices.)
As for “noise” in most cases I don’t even consider it, unless I want to print out a large pic, either for myself or for sale.
I value everybody’s opinions as I find they are a lot of the time of value to me, whether I agree or not. Even at my age leaning heavily on my 8th decade one has much to learn.
I thank you kindly for looking in and the interesting comments.

LittleRed (Ron)

LittleRed

Thank you Curmudgeon looking and commenting. Yes, they do serve very well in what I use them for.

LittleRed (Ron)

LittleRed

Thanks Stephen for the kind words. I was quite pleased to get even a few fair-2-midlin pics considering the light I had available.

LittleRed (Ron)

hettmoe Loc: Rural ND

Very nice!