Pine Siskin

[Bill Dix]

New Jersey has had an invasion of Pine Siskins in the past few weeks. There were 15 of the feisty fellows on my feeders for a few days last week. This one was kind enough to perch on my Euonymus branch. Light was fading, so I resorted to higher ISO, lower SS than I might have liked, and some fill flash.

D7000, 500f4, ISO 1600, 1/320s @ f/7.1 manual, fill @ -0.3.


<iframe width="468" height="60" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src="http://mer54715.datafeedfile.com/widget/aff_widget_prdt_generate-2.0.php?aff_num=10536&aff_net=1&widget_num=1802"><p>Sorry your browser does not support iFrame</p></iframe>

[Karl Egressy]

Nice shot Bill. The bird is nicely framed with the red leaves.

[Miguel Palaviccini]

Very nice shot Bill! I would consider a tighter crop and maybe a touch more contrast on the bird. Looks like you did a great job, even with the low light conditions.

[Bill Dix]

Thanks Karl and Miguel. I did consider a tighter crop, but couldn't decide if it looked any better. Keeping the foliage on the right and cropping from the left put the bird even more in the center and seemed very static. Cutting some of the foliage on the right, as in this repost, seemed unbalanced to me. What do you think?

[Randy Stout]

Bill:

Interesting compositional challenge here. In the original, I felt the bird was overpowered by the red leaves. Red being the strongest of all colors, the most forward and eye catching, it just seemed to be too much. In the repost, the bird is large enough in the frame that he competes for our attention better. Yes, I would prefer not to crop the leaves on right, but overall, I prefer the repost slightly.

Cheers

Randy

[Miguel Palaviccini]

I didn't think about the crop of the leaves on the right when I mentioned it, but I do like the repost a bit better.

[Daniel Cadieux]

The repost does look very good indeed. Great perch and decor ( and I dig the rainbow colouring between the feet!!). I like the dark, BG, but I'd consider getting rid of the faint streak in ULC. Nice static pose by the siskin. Flas work is well executed.

[dankearl]

Very attractive colors, Bill and the repost is nice.
It is a tough crop, I might consider taking some off the left and centering the bird against
all the rules, but I think it might look nice.

[Marina Scarr]

Like the RP quite a bit more b/c felt all the red was a bit overpowering. Great pose, like the perch. Would sharpen the bird just a tad more, esp the head.

[Shawn Zierman]

Sweet siskin image on a perch that is pretty unusual in regards to seeing this species on.
The leaves in front of the siskie going up make the composition pretty tricky....I think your
OP was pretty spot on as far as comp goes. If you had clipped that bunch of leave off, (the
bunch going up in front of the bird)...I think this comp might have worked better...they
are just a bit much as is...Sharpness of the bird looks A-ok to me....

[David Salem]

Nice shot. Love the colors of the scene as a whole. Exposed well and bird is sharp. Like the re-post better. Good job..

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Bill, I'll be the odd man out :-) liked the OP comp. more. The red is a bit overpowering but I like that image design more. terrific shot. tail not merging with the leaves is awesome.

sharpness looks good. There might be slight head motion but the flash has frozen it quite well.

[Bill Dix]

Thanks everyone.