Zebra Finch - female

[John Cooper]

Female Zebra grass-finch, attracted to bird-feeder, perches on flowering Hakea.


EOS 7D, EF100-400 L at 330mm, ISO 200, 1/250 sec @ F7.1, Early morning light, Hide, Tripod.


<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=1708"><p>Sorry your browser does not support iFrame</p></iframe>

[christopher galeski]

colorful image of a nice looking finch,like the BG,and some nice detail.thanks.

[Bill Jobes]

I love your photo of the beautiful finch ! The perch is most interesting, as it shows how they can alight amid all kinds of hazards !

[Shawn Zierman]

Beautiful finch! Love the plumage. Excellent head turn and facial expression.
Bill made a good point about how it is interesting to see the bird handle a seemingly
precarious perch....I think the perch is a bit much here. The brightness of the white
flowers and how many of them there are creates too much visual dominance.
There is quite a bit of noise in the bg, especially up in the darker green areas towards
the top of the frame....wonder why that would be when you are shooting at such a
low iso?

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Hey John this is a cool looking female! I do like the plant and the open beak! is sharp and well exposed. I would suggest some surface blur on BG to smooth it a bit.

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

May be something like this?
For this one I created a copy (Crl+J) and applied Filter/Blur/Surface Blur Radius 10+ / Threshold 3+

[Stu Bowie]

Hi John, lots of colour and detail to study on this little gem, and you have captured an interesting pose. Overall sharp, and I like what JC has done to the BG. Shawn has hit this on the head with the perch being a touch over powering in the overall image. Maybe the white flowers would have been fine on their own, but the protruding 'spikes' are the spoiling factor. Pity. With your talent, you will just go out and get a better one wont you. :w3

[David Salem]

Great shot of this finch. Love the look back pose. Exposure, detail,colors and comp are very nice. The BG dose look better on the re-post. Well Done!

[John Cooper]

May be something like this?
For this one I created a copy (Crl+J) and applied Filter/Blur/Surface Blur Radius 10+ / Threshold 3+

Many thanks Juan, it certainly does improve the BG - yes I should've applied that surface blur before I posted. Shawn wondered why the degree of noise at iso 200 - it was almost a 50% crop which no doubt contributed to enhancing the noise in shadow areas.

[John Cooper]

Beautiful finch! Love the plumage. Excellent head turn and facial expression.
Bill made a good point about how it is interesting to see the bird handle a seemingly
precarious perch....I think the perch is a bit much here. The brightness of the white
flowers and how many of them there are creates too much visual dominance.
There is quite a bit of noise in the bg, especially up in the darker green areas towards
the top of the frame....wonder why that would be when you are shooting at such a


low iso?

Thanks for your comments Shawn - yes the noise is a bit disproportinate for an iso 200 and exposure biased to the right. Certainly the approx 50% crop didn't help though..!!

[Karl Egressy]

Nice bird, well captured.

[Robert Holguin]

Very nice shot.
Beautiful bird, great pose, wonderful background, and great comp.
I really like the perch, but feel it competes with the bird.
Well done.

[Satish Ranadive]

Superb image of beautiful finch.
Love the pose with open beak,colors,nice details,backdrop and perch.

Regards,
Satish.

[Jim Crosswell]

I like the pose, open beak, sharpness and interesting perch. A new bird for me. Nice image John.