KevinFRK

Not laughing - I had a terrible time when I was first trying to get the mounting plate for the camera off of the body of Manfroto Ball mount, requiring copious amounts of WD40, close watching of videos of how it should have worked, and brute force. It now works pretty well, but was a wierd movement intended to stop accidental releases.

If you have a decent camera shop nearby, they might be prepared to look at it (I'm guessing you bought online)

Otherwise, I'd guess you've already tried WD40 anywhere there's a crack that might be relevant (remembering to wipe it all away before going near a camera), and double checking instruction manuals and youtube for videos of mount in action (just in case there is a "trick"). So, ummm, good luck!

If that's in the UK, they might be soldier beetles of some kind, but hard to tell from the side and/or closer.

In passing, as a first approximation, (true) bugs suck, while beetles chew and have hard wing cases (which is what these look like having). But there's plenty of examples to the contrary!

Shield bugs have a wide often colourful "shield" as their back - it's hard to believe you wouldn't have noticed!

Ah, there I am making assumptions again!

Still, some sort of histogram tool should be present any anything that pretends to process RAW files, and is often my only post-processing after cropping (admittedly, for bird photography, where I don't usually want to tamper with colour).

On speed - the real trick on situations that change is to train yourself to take any sort of shot first for the memory, and only then think about framing, angle, best focus technique and all those sorts of things that take time and lead to missing the opportunity all together.

Have you tried what Canon DPP calls Gamma Adjustment, or what I think of as "the Histogram Tool"? Depending on your tools, it should at least have a top (light), middle and bottom (dark) marker that you can slide. The most impactful is the middle one, pushing it towards the top (light) end, can add impact (greater changes in brightness in the middle of the range) and remove a washed out look, whereas going the other way can bring out some milder darker areas without affecting the strong darks and lights. To me, it seems likely the JPG had that midpoint pushed a little towards the top end, so that the JPG feels less washed out than the RAW.

Loosely, Gamma Adjustment allows a more controlled change from just an overall Brightness Control, withe Shadows and Highlights controls somewhere in between.

Less relevant here, but the top marker can be used to bring overblown pixels back into having graduations and throwing away the detail in a boring grey/white sky (opening up a greater range of brightnesses elsewhere), while the bottom marker can throw away the detail in the darkest shadows.

In passing, if your third party tools "start" with your RAW photo displaying differently to the JPG you might benefit from looking at Canon's own tools. I'm guessing Canon DPP4 still works with your camera's photos, and if so, it's both free and remarkably powerful for a free tool - though it's mostly only about global edits. It also "starts" at what your camera would do before saving as a JPG. You can probably work in DPP, save in TIFF format, and import that TIFF into your third-party tool and not lose any of the information to allow detailed editing, alternative de-noising, balancing and sharpening approaches, etc.

In passing, don't be too dismissive of your shooting skills - that picture is sharp, interesting subject, and nicely cropped or framed. Not a prize-winner, but worth keeping.

Presumably a test of bot upvoting, as, for all its a very nice photo, it appears bird-free!

That said, I'm pleased to see the pair back together (they breed in Prospect Park ,Reading), - a couple of days ago there was just one resulting in this lonely shot:

Certainly better than me :)

For common birds, you can see why people didn't want to give up their long established local name for birds even as scientists tried to regularise them. Thus, Latin names :)

For the real madness compare UK & American bird names and the actual species named in taxonomies.

In the UK, a Short-Toed Treecreeper is listed in my bird book as "European Vagrant <30 Records", so I'd be amazed if it wasn't just Certhia Familiaris".

And thank you!

Merlin ID from Cornell Labs works well for me.

I can't see any technical mistakes (which is a worthy thing), and you've got the lights so as to show the shadows of the bone structure nicely, so you are really in the zone of "Do I like this photo?", and it's you and the sitter's liking of the photo (or is it a self portrait?) which are the most important things.

Possible things to change if they don't appeal to you (but you may like them):

• You've reflected light in the eyes - do you want them at all, and/or in those positions
• The sunglasses are slightly off-centre - are you happy with how they balance the image (you may well like how they balance the pocket)
• There's wisps of hair on the forehead - but that could easily be because that's how the sitter expects to be (a model would be furious, but that's not what this portrait is of!)
• The hair just fades into the background - which is a valid choice, but did you consider alternatives, such as a minor amount of backlighting?

As I said, they get everywhere, and demand attention (or at least nuts)