Show your Bird Portraits

Although really common here, it is the first time that I came close enough to get decent photos of a song thrush (turdus philomelos).
And another one! That one seems to have some tick at the beak, or whatever that black bulge there is.
5D4, 100-400L II + TC, @560mm, f/8, 1/800, ISO250

thrush_2023_04.JPGthrush_2023_05.JPG
 
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Have you used a lot of USM? it's quite different from your usual images and has white halos.
USM?
Sorry, don‘t know what you mean.
USM to means Ultra Sonic Motor to me.
I did my usual PP with DPP.
I needed heavy cropping 1:1.
That white halo also appears in the unprocessed RAW, too.
Too much contrast for the sensor?
 
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USM?
Sorry, don‘t know what you mean.
USM to means Ultra Sonic Motor to me.
I did my usual PP with DPP.
I needed heavy cropping 1:1.
That white halo also appears in the unprocessed RAW, too.
Top much contrast for the sensor?
USM = UnSharp Mask, the process used by DPP, PS etc for sharpening. When it's too heavy, it puts halos around the subjects. If there are halos in RAW, then it is due to another reason that I don't know about.
 
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USM = UnSharp Mask, the process used by DPP, PS etc for sharpening. When it's too heavy, it puts halos around the subjects. If there are halos in RAW, then it is due to another reason that I don't know about.
Evident halos around the high-contrast areas (dark feathers and branches against blue sky). If not due to excessive sharpening, could be due correction of chromatic aberration (the aberrant color fringes are desaturated, leading to the white halo). Still shouldn't show up in the RAW file (you'd see the colored fringe there).
 
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Spent the last week in Israel, based in Eilat, to watch the bird migration, mainly high flying raptors. It was great birdwatching for the experts, and there really knowledgeable ones in the group as well as the superb guides. But, it was difficult for photography as we rarely got close and we were in the desert for much of the time. My wife used the R7 + RF 100-400mm and I the R5 + RF 100-500mm. Both sets of gear behaved superbly, and in the good light the R7 was hardly inferior. We took thousands of images and I'll post a few here. Then first bird we saw was at a car park, a Tristram's Starling, and a bit later a pair of White-spectacled Bulbuls, and I'll do one from each camera.

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