Pine Siskin

[Bill Dix]

Pine Siskin on Euonymus branch, near my feeders back in October. I don't think I've posted this one before. Closest thing I could find with red and green in my recent files, with which to wish everyone a Merry Christmas.

D7000, 500f4, ISO 1600, 1/500s @ f/7.1 manual.


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[Grace Scalzo]

Isn't that Pyricantha? In any case, I'm not in love with it as I feel it competes with the bird both in color and in size. That's my opinion only though, you might not like the way I match some of my outfits either. :w3

[Arthur Morris]

I like the bird, the perch, and the sharpness. The light stuff in the BKGR left bugs me a bit as do the three small vertical branches below the perch. Did you set up the branch as a perch?

[Bill Dix]

Grace and Artie. When I posted a similar shot a few months ago ( a female Siskin on a different part of the branch), there was a similar reaction: the amount of red overwhelmed the bird. (In that case the bird was smaller in the frame, with even more red leaves.) Yes, Artie, this branch was borrowed from elsewhere in my yard, and placed near my feeders. I don't like the light stuff either, which I guess is why I didn't post this one earlier. It is an OOF branch from a dogwood tree in the bg. It (and some of the lower leaves) could be cloned out without too much difficulty.

Grace, I'm pretty sure the plant is Euonymus alatus, known variously as winged spindle, winged euonymus or burning bush. There are something like 180 varieties of Euonymus, so I could be wrong.

[Arthur Morris]

Bill. I was fine with the colors. You could have pruned those three branches while preparing the perch without leaving much of a scar.... And selecting a spot with a cleaner background would save lots of PP work.

[gail bisson]

Hi Bill,
I would clone out the 3 branches that are on the bottom of the perch and smooth out the dogwood in the BG.
That would really make this image sing because the bird and BG are lovely and a little bit of red would look great.
Gail

[Nick Palmieri]

Agree that the perch is a little busy. But nice job on the bird.

[Roy Priest]

Bill, lovely little bird, great background. I like the red in the photo and never noticed the light area until it was pointed out.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Bill, love the soft light, detail and colours on the bird, and really like the one twig with the pink leaves in front of the bird. I agree, cleaning up the rest of the perch will improve this ten fold. :w3

[Bill Dix]

OK. Good points made. Here's a repost with the three bottom twigs gone, along with some smoothing of the light bg. I suppose I could have gone further and cleaned up some of the tangle on the left, but ran out of time (my family wants to take a walk). Let me know what you think. Thanks for the input.

[gail bisson]

hi Bill,
it looks a lot cleaner now.

I might smooth out the cloned area under the branch as it looks a bit blotchy.
gail

[Bill Dix]

hi Bill,
it looks a lot cleaner now.

I might smooth out the cloned area under the branch as it looks a bit blotchy.
gail
I see what you mean, Gail. That's what I get for trying to do it in a hurry.

[Karl Egressy]

Very nice picture, great bird and nice perch, Bill. The repost is a definite improvement. I wish and your family the same, Bill.

[Bill Dix]

I found a little time to play with this some more, and cleaned it up so more attention is given to the bird. Hope you like it. (PS. As I look at the preview, I'm seeing some strange jpeg artifacts. I used the same workflow as always to "save-to'web", so I don't know what's causing it. Any suggestions would be appreciated.