Two birds

Another photoshop edit - I'm determined to learn it lol.

I can't advise you about Photoshop. For the shot itself, nice color scheme, background, and subject (= timing). I would wish for a smaller aperture, to get sharper focus on the birds.

something looks off with the focus, or maybe the processing?

It is out of focus......but what did you do in your edit?

Is not OOF...has a shallow DOF...the left bird is in a somewhat different plane or it's a blended image.

I agree with those saying you needed a smaller aperture, the bird on the left is a bit further away, and only the very closest parts are within the DoF, the right hand bird though, the focus is spot on for that one. What FL were you using, and what was the ratio between camera to subject distance, and camera to background? I get the feeling that the background was pretty far away, and that you are actually very close to the subject, since I don't know of any really long f/2 lenses, so really you ought to be able to stop down a couple of stops to get the necessary DoF.

The processing looks OK, what exactly did you do in PS? If I were to make a guess I would have said that there was no PS involved, just work in the RAW converter.

Alan

I agree with the others that the focus is off. The bird on the right looks good. To me the focal plane seems pretty even. What was your focal length?

Since you asked about the photoshop edit, rather than the images, I'd do something about that rivet since it is distracting- clone it out.

I'd consider centering the post (cropping some of the left) since the birds are almost symmetrical. OTOH, the space on the left could be useful for ad copy (or your logo) depending on how the photograph will be used.

chauncey wrote in post #18201905

something looks off with the focus

It is out of focus

Is not OOF...has a shallow DOF...the left bird is in a somewhat different plane or it's a blended image.

I am assuming one bird was slightly further away from the other. I did notice the softness, but I couldn't resist the coordinating colors. I added some extra bokeh balls near the bottom for more interest, although I wanted to make it appear natural.

This lens has complaints about focusing in certain conditions, I wonder if I can blame it This was the only image out of 8 or so with the birds more in focus and not doing anything off like ducking the head into the feeder. I suppose it was difficult conditions for most lenses considering the task I was asking it to perform.

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atsilverstein wrote in post #18203669
This lens has complaints about focusing in certain conditions, I wonder if I can blame it.

And what lens might this be?

If the lens was a zoom, I would also like to know at what focal length the image was taken at.

atsilverstein wrote in post #18203669
This was the only image out of 8 or so with the birds more in focus and not doing anything off like ducking the head into the feeder. I suppose it was difficult conditions for most lenses considering the task I was asking it to perform.

I think that the lens was ok. And I think that the conditions were ok.

The problem, I believe, was using such a large aperture - f2 - when you were trying to get two birds in focus in the same shot. If you had used a smaller aperture such as f4 or f5.0, I think that you would have better accomplished your objective. There was plenty of light for this - shutter speed really isn't as much of a concern as many bird photographers seem to think it is - a shot like this could probably be achieved with no problems at all with a shutter speed as low as 1/80th of a second; even slower if need be.


Nonetheless, it is a really cool concept and I love the bokeh - even more impressive to me is the fact that you used Photoshop to create the bokeh circles - how cool is that?!!!

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atsilverstein wrote in post #18203669
I am assuming one bird was slightly further away from the other. I did notice the softness, but I couldn't resist the coordinating colors. I added some extra bokeh balls near the bottom for more interest, although I wanted to make it appear natural.

This lens has complaints about focusing in certain conditions, I wonder if I can blame it This was the only image out of 8 or so with the birds more in focus and not doing anything off like ducking the head into the feeder. I suppose it was difficult conditions for most lenses considering the task I was asking it to perform.

You did some of the bokeh balls- Impressive, they came out nice. They do look natural.