Dear critics

I'm a landscapes photographer and less familiar with the dos and don'ts of bird’s photography.

I got this nice photo of a Lesser whitethroat with yellow stains of stamens.

I like the colors and composition but would seek your advice as to the special characteristic of the genre.

Thank you very much for your input. 

Guy Sapir PRO

Dear critics

 

I'm a landscapes photographer and less familiar with the dos and don'ts of bird’s photography.

I got this nice photo of a Lesser whitethroat with yellow stains of stamens.

I like the colors and composition but would seek your advice as to the special characteristic of the genre.

Thank you very much for your input. 

 

Hello Guy Sapir and welcome to the Critique Forum. If I understand your message correctly, you just want more information about the bird. What part of the world are you in i.e. where was this picture taken. That will help with the identification.

You might want to check the site AllAboutbirds.com (https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Common_Yellowthroat/) to get some info on this bird. I am not certain what it is. |t could be an immature Common Yellowthroat  or maybe a warbler.  I did do a quick search with reverse image in Google.  You might want to try that. 

There is also the Website ebird that could be helpful for identification.

I hope this helps.

Good luck.

Lucie, s.c. 

Guy,

Thanks for posting the photo here in Critique.  It is very sharp and has good texture in the feathers.  You caught a good expression.  The little subect looks curious and alert.  A catch-light in the eye would add to that - and you could probably do that with the Dodge tool.

You asked for advice on bird photography.  I've snapped a few pictures of my backyard birds, but I'm no expert.  What I have noticed though, on this site,  is that generally birds are shown full size, perfectly sharp, and with a very soft and uncluttered background.  You can check out the Published and Awarded photos in the 'animals' section of the 1X gallery to see examples. 

To soften the background for this photo you could try Photoshop's 'Select>Subject', then fine-tune the selection with the 'Quick Selection Tool' using the Alt key to subtract from, and the Shift key to add to the selection.  Once that's done you can invert the selection with 'Select>Inverse' so that the subject is protected while you work on the background.  I suggest one of Photoshop's 'Blur' filters - perhaps 'Lens Blur' to soften the background.  The slider in  'Image>Adjustments>Saturate' could be used to de-saturate the colours in the background to make it less distracting - and could also be used to increase saturation in the bird.  The idea is to help the subject stand out a little more from the background. 

I like the photo as it is - with the bird almost camouflaged in its surroundings - but I'm guessing that many viewers would like to see the usual completely out of focus background.

I've edited a screen capture and posted it below.  It's cropped much closer, the background is softened and de-saturated,and the bird's saturation is increased just a little.  I used the Dodge tool to brighten the highlight in the eye, and the Clone tool to make it round.  One last thing - the branch in front of the bird was selected with the Quick Selection tool and darkened. 

. . . . Steven, senior critic

Lucie Gagnon CREW 

Guy Sapir PRO

Dear critics

 

I'm a landscapes photographer and less familiar with the dos and don'ts of bird’s photography.

I got this nice photo of a Lesser whitethroat with yellow stains of stamens.

I like the colors and composition but would seek your advice as to the special characteristic of the genre.

Thank you very much for your input. 

 

Hello Guy Sapir and welcome to the Critique Forum. If I understand your message correctly, you just want more information about the bird. What part of the world are you in i.e. where was this picture taken. That will help with the identification.

You might want to check the site AllAboutbirds.com (https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Common_Yellowthroat/) to get some info on this bird. I am not certain what it is. |t could be an immature Common Yellowthroat  or maybe a warbler.  I did do a quick search with reverse image in Google.  You might want to try that. 

There is also the Website ebird that could be helpful for identification.

I hope this helps.

Good luck.

Lucie, s.c. 

 

 

Thank you Lucie for trying to help with the identification.

My question were in the photography aspects.

The bird as I wrote is a "Lesser whitethroat" with yellow stains of stamens.

Thank you for the research. Much appreciated.

Steven T CREW 

Guy,

 

Thanks for posting the photo here in Critique.  It is very sharp and has good texture in the feathers.  You caught a good expression.  The little subect looks curious and alert.  A catch-light in the eye would add to that - and you could probably do that with the Dodge tool.

 

You asked for advice on bird photography.  I've snapped a few pictures of my backyard birds, but I'm no expert.  What I have noticed though, on this site,  is that generally birds are shown full size, perfectly sharp, and with a very soft and uncluttered background.  You can check out the Published and Awarded photos in the 'animals' section of the 1X gallery to see examples. 

 

To soften the background for this photo you could try Photoshop's 'Select>Subject', then fine-tune the selection with the 'Quick Selection Tool' using the Alt key to subtract from, and the Shift key to add to the selection.  Once that's done you can invert the selection with 'Select>Inverse' so that the subject is protected while you work on the background.  I suggest one of Photoshop's 'Blur' filters - perhaps 'Lens Blur' to soften the background.  The slider in  'Image>Adjustments>Saturate' could be used to de-saturate the colours in the background to make it less distracting - and could also be used to increase saturation in the bird.  The idea is to help the subject stand out a little more from the background. 

 

I like the photo as it is - with the bird almost camouflaged in its surroundings - but I'm guessing that many viewers would like to see the usual completely out of focus background.

 

I've edited a screen capture and posted it below.  It's cropped much closer, the background is softened and de-saturated,and the bird's saturation is increased just a little.  I used the Dodge tool to brighten the highlight in the eye, and the Clone tool to make it round.  One last thing - the branch in front of the bird was selected with the Quick Selection tool and darkened. 

 

. . . . Steven, senior critic

 

 

Thank you Steven.

Your input is allways insightful.

I might take a tighter crop. I have soften the background a little bit but do not want to over do it.

Thanks

Guy Sapir PRO

Dear critics

 

I'm a landscapes photographer and less familiar with the dos and don'ts of bird’s photography.

I got this nice photo of a Lesser whitethroat with yellow stains of stamens.

I like the colors and composition but would seek your advice as to the special characteristic of the genre.

Thank you very much for your input. 

 

Hello Guy Sapir ,

sorry if I misunderstood your question. I read it too quickly. 

Steven has already given you some good advice about bird photography and some pointers about your photo. It is true that in general having the whole bird is preferable, but in this case, I think it works well to just see part of the bird because he is hiding in the shrubs. Also, sometimes a close up shot works too. 

Here is what I suggest:

I used the Detail Enhance filter in Nik Color Efex Pro and I lightened the shadows on the bird in Photoshop . Then I cropped the image tighter in a 5x7 format and clone most of the branches in the foreground. Their blurriness bothered me. I also cloned out a fine red leaves that were blurry and over the branches that I kept. 

I hope this is helpful.

Good luck.

Lucie s.c. 

Hello, Guy

Welcome to our forum and thank you for posting your nice image. I myself am not much experienced in bird photography. However, I can see that you managed it quite fine. My friends before me already said that the sharpness in the eye is press birthday. I totally agree with that. Apart from that, I might advise you to blur the background a bit more. As there are some colorful elements in your image, subduing the background some more will bring the subject to the front. Here is an example of what I mean:

In addition, I also cropped the image regarding the rule of thirds. I used the 2:3 ratio. I wish you good light. Cicek Kiral SC...