Chipping Sparrow (Four Photographs) and some comments on Processing

SparrowTo view more of my photography please click on www.rakmilphotography.com

I believe this to be a chipping sparrow. When I looked at the raw files of this bird three things stood out: part of its throat and some of it white feathers were bluish; there was Moire´ in the feather pattern, and the lighting on the face of the bird was not consistent. For the first, a hue saturation adjustment in Photoshop worked well, for the second, some selective sharpening helped and for the third, the radial filter in Lightroom worked nicely. I was fortunate that my exposure and the dynamic range of the original raw file had the latitude I needed. I am beginning to think there is no such thing as bad light. (See comments below, I am told this is an American Tree Sparrow).

Sparrow-2

Sparrow-3

Sparrow-4

Sparrow

10 responses

  1. TPJ

    Thanks. I would have said Chipping Sparrow also. Nice shots

    Liked by 2 people

    September 5, 2016 at 11:03 pm

  2. It has such a wintery feel to me. Lovely series.

    Like

    September 5, 2016 at 11:14 am

  3. Deilicate colors

    Liked by 2 people

    September 5, 2016 at 1:29 am

  4. Amazing how you have your model pose for you in four different poses. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    September 3, 2016 at 11:51 pm

  5. Very nice job making the sparrow stand out among the branches.

    Liked by 1 person

    September 2, 2016 at 7:15 am

  6. Ah, sparrows–they are so difficult, and I would have made the same ID before I knew some of the subtleties. This is an American Tree Sparrow, but if you look at the Cornell Lab or Ornithology website, they show the Chipping Sparrow as a “similar species” and carefully point out the differences. The two species are almost alike. The key here is the brown eye stripe, which on a chipping sparrow is black. That and a bit of black on the front part of the brown cap are the only differences you will notice between the two. American Tree sparrows are winter visitors to our region and summer in Canada. From the picture, it looks like you caught him in his winter quarters. And you made these beautiful photographs, which I can only envy. You have great skill and I wish I had half the knowledge you have with photography. Very impressive. Thanks for sharing!

    Liked by 3 people

    September 2, 2016 at 1:41 am

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