These were taken 3 weeks ago. Found a region where they seem to be gathering. They were feeding and locally very common. Shy birds but very colourful.
Female Flame robin
Female Flame robin
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Lovely shots geecee of some beautiful little birds ..... do you use any PP on your shots? I am thinking of the background here as everything else looks really natural to me ... not too over contrasted and sharpened up which I really like. Just curious that is all I love your stuff :)
Sunshine Coast Queensland
Hi birdie. Thanks for the feedback.
I use some PP on them. I use as little as possible. The background is way out of focus as the aperture was 5.6.
The original jpg file from the camera resized to 500 wide for the second image is below:
A similar area crop of the original jpg which has been resized to 500 wide but with no other PP is below:
Fantastic geecee!.... and well done on achieving a beautiful result using aperture and through the lens technique. That makes me really happy to see as you can tell :')
I have been so disappointed in recent times to learn that much of what I see is being done on a computer and not through the lens. I think a certain amount of PP is nice and can really improve a shot, mainly exp,curves and selective sharpening ( very selective IMO) but it is really great to see a good shot that is just a good shot .Well done they are lovely .
Sunshine Coast Queensland
beautifully done CeeCee. Robins are very photogenic and your shots are exceptional.
Cheers, Owen.
Really nice shots...thx for sharing I have not seen one since I was a kid.
Really stunning birds and photos - please keep posting
Thanks for the comments. They are quite stunning in real life. Almost too red.
Re-visited the area again today. The robins were still plentiful but my son 'prematurely inherited' my gear.
He was able to get some shots too.
Stunning shots of this gorgeous species. Thanks for sharing.
Cheers,
George
Melbourne, VIC
Beautiful photos GeeCee.
Very nice mate! I am yet to see a male of this species. Hopefully I will when I am on holidays in a couple of weeks. Well done! :)
To add to Adrienne's (Birdie) thoughts on post processing:
It is necessary as most images come out looking a bit yuck, especially if you use the "shoot to the right" principle, which you can read here:
http://www.feathersandphotos.com.au/forums/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=7149
However, there are many useful tools that one can use during post processing, remembering that the camera takes the image and applies the adjustments that you (the user) sets up in the camera menu, eg in camera sharpening, color etc... Now, if you have photoshop, then making post adjustments that can go many levels, such as levels, curves, saturation, contrast, selective color, dodge/burn etc. Of course you can do more, such as add/remove objects, but that to me does defeat the purpose of nature photography. I will sometimes clone or do some "out of normal" enhancements, but only if the image warrants it, in my opinion. Some people use the blur tool to remove noise in the background, (hopefully NOT to improve bokeh), but I would use a noise filtering tool, like Neat Image. Of course, shooting to the right minimizes the need to do noise reduction later. :) Hopefully, this senseless post is of some value to a photographer or two here. :)
Thank you for the encouraging comments. My previous comment that I use as little PP as possible is nonsense. As little as possible = none at all! That is not the case.
I am relatively new to digital SLR photography and to bird photography. I try to remember to shoot a little overexposed, think about shadows and try and get good composition etc but sometimes I am just so busy trying to get the subject in the viewfinder and into focus that once I have it there, most other things become very secondary and I press the shutter. Many of the birds I try and photograph are not really interested in hanging around while I get all of my problems together. I'm hoping that I can get to a stage that some of these things start to happen more automatically.
I am also quite new to Photoshop and only very recently started using CS5. I am changing my approach as I go and may try and get some proper advice or do some serious research soon. When I open the raw file, I generally take all sharpening off as it seems to add noise and adjust the exposure, brightness and contrast. I usually slide the Blacks back to 0 or very close to 0 and sometimes change the White Balance a little. Once in Photoshop I use some dodge and burn of problem areas or adjustment of shadows and highlights. I also crop in Photoshop. I am yet to learn about curves and selective colour etc. Bokeh comes directly from the lenses.
Sorry.....I went on a bit!!!