blp shabash 430x45
Inspiring and Supporting Photographers of Australian Birds

Eastern Spinebill

Photographed by

Philip d'Auvergne on Fri 30th Apr, 2021 and uploaded on Thu 6th May, 2021 .

Resolution

1800x1013

Viewed

610

46022

Comment

The autumn colours are such an incredible canvas to work with, but I wonder if they are too much of a distraction in the image. I\'m interested in how others would approach post-processing a photo like this, where the background plays a massive role in the overall composition.

Edited with darktable:
1) Exposure, white balance and lens corrections
2) Subject is overall brightened with individual shadow/midtone/highlight adjustments, iris brightened and saturated.
3) Background colours have been slighty shifted toward yellow, and the tree trunks lightened and saturated to bring a little more uniformity,
Subject and background individually denoised at different strengths to suit the different levels of detail.

Equipment

Canon 650D, Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS II, 1/400s f/5.6 500 ISO

Location

Ballarat, Victoria

Keywords

male, adult

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Con Boekel	2021-05-10 14:05:28	Hi Philip You pose an interesting question. Part of the answer lies in what you intend to achieve. Taking the bird in isolation, the issues would be that something like the rear half of the bird is out of focus. The red of the eye looks dull compared with the real thing. There is a lack of detail about the blacks and whites in the breast. I believe that most of these issues can only marginally be improved by post processing. The Eastern Spinebill moves rapidly and in a jerky fashion. I would encourage you to try experimenting with a faster shutter speed, perhaps better natural lighting conditions, and perhaps something more like f8. Sometimes moving the focal point a bit more towards the rear of the bird helps to maximize the depth of field gain. If your aim is more to capture a generally beautiful image with subtlety across a limited field of color tones then I would be more than happy with the outcome. The unusual width to height ratio works well, IMO. The bird's pose, with its tilted head, has a nice tension to it. kind regards Con Boekel
Philip d'Auvergne	2021-05-10 20:10:21	Thanks for the critique, Con I agree with you when taking the bird in isolation. Viewed on its own, it's not up to my standard of bird photography either. The big issue I'm having is getting good detail and contrast out of a ten year old entry level camera in what is actually fairly difficult lighting conditions because of the leaves. The spinebill stayed in that spot long enough for me to rattle off a half dozen shots, most of them in far less striking poses, but I also got the same pose with the ISO cranked up...which did give far much more detail in the bird, but caused a lot of blow out on the leaves. So I picked the shot with a better overall composition. There is a reason why I picked the aspect ratio; the width was defined by the placement of the tree trunk on the opposing 1/3rds of the image to the spinebill, while the bird's direction of gaze defined the top left corner, and the branch being parallel to that defined the bottom right corner. Cheers, Phil
Con Boekel	2021-05-11 10:36:47	Phil The tree trunk is an interesting composition issue. I agree with your view about how it works well in relation to 1/3rds. In my original comment I nearly raised the issue of how the tree trunk disrupted the leaves background by juxtaposing a thick, darker area, but decided not to make the comment...just as well! In terms of disruption, the only other issue there is the dark area in the left foreground corner. BTW, our eyes tend to interpret bright as 'closer' and dark as 'further'. IMO, this creates quite a visual tension around the the crown of the bird's head.
Philip d'Auvergne	2021-05-11 17:06:46	--I definitely would have preferred the trunk out of the image completely, but it just didn't work with the bird eleswhere in the image, and were I to put that much work into image manipulation to remove the trunk, I'd be better off using the time to photoshop in the better detailed photo of the bird first, but that wouldn't fly here at all. Thanks for pointing out the rest of the trunk on bottom left though, that is a complete oversight on my part. I just lumped that bit in with the rest of the tree trunk parts, and forgot to look at it once I'd settled the larger trunk. I think if I revisit this one it would take no effort to cut that dark patch out entirely, especially since the leaves in the foreground are already drawing the viewers attention. I actually debated what I could do with all the contrasting spots around the head. As I said, I did flatten the colours out a little, but originally I squashed the hues and luminosities right down but I didn't like the result at all, so I ended up leaving quite a lot of it in. I think you're spot on about it too, it kinda works like a silhouette or a negative space around the bird.
Graham Cam	2021-05-23 09:20:01	Hi Phillip, In writing critiques for this gallery, I do not read the comments from other members; the reason for this is to ensure an unbiased appraisal of your image. Further, I adopt the same strategy as when judging at regional camera clubs; the positive aspects of the image are discussed first, followed by suggestions for improving the image. If this image was displayed in an exhibition it would immediately attract my attention – well done! The brightness and warm yellow hues are the most positive aspects of this image. There is depth in this image even though the background hues are essentially yellows and yellow-greens throughout. The depth is achieved by the softly focussed foreground leaves, whilst the leaves further in the background being out-of-focus and generating a gorgeous bokeh. I’m in two minds about the dark out-of-fucus tree limb intersecting the vertical aspect of the image; the reason most judges would downgrade this image is that this dark element in the composition draws the viewers eyes away from the main subject. The fact that there is another dark branch in the lower left-hand corner does add a level of symmetry in the image, which is a positive, but the key is that the distraction still remains. The branch diagonally oriented is a positive element in the image and I particularly like that you have not overly enhanced the texture of the branch even though it is delightful with the lichen growth. The grey-greens of the lichen complement the background. The bird on the other hand doesn’t attract my interest and I assume the bird is intended to be the principal element in this composition. It is neither the highlighted element in this image nor is it a darkened silhouette against this wonderful bokeh. How might this image be improved? If you chose to edit the background (and this is purely a personal preference), Content Aware in Photoshop (PS) would seamlessly remove the dark branches and replace them with a modification of the beautiful bokeh. However, this would require a time commitment to achieve a seamless edit as the branches intersect with the diagonal branch and foreground leaves; nonetheless, it is achievable. As to the bird, I think that achieving a dark silhouetted bird would have been best achieved in camera at the time of capture. It would also require under-exposing several stops, resulting in a dark background. However, a mask over the background would enable the background to be brightened to its current state. Using a Canon 650D would inevitable introduce a moderate to high level of digital noise unfortunately, but Topaz DeNoise or Neat Image would likely take care of this issue. So, what might you do with the current image. I’m not sure I have a definitive answer without experimentation in LR. I would be keen to see the effect of masking the bird (above the branch & perhaps leaving the bill and the black cap unmasked) and increasing the bird’s brightness, mid-tone contrast and possible a little Saturation and Texture. A second mask just on the red eye to brighten and saturate this colour might draw the viewers attention to this part of the image. I trust my comments have been useful. Kind Regards, Graham Cam

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	204/283 in Critique Gallery
	2/10 by Philip d'Auvergne
	124/200 of Eastern Spinebill
	2333/3593 of Honeyeaters and Chats
	21965/34511 Overall
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