Backyard Bird #3 - House Finch

[Bill Dix]

Day Three of the GBBC, so here's another backyard bird. From last September at my feeders. This one's for Phil, who said he found " a lot to lichen" about yesterday's post. This one takes the perch to new levels -- perhaps overpowering the bird (cropped to 4x5 ratio to reduce the impact). Hope you're lichen it. :S3:

D7000, 500mm, ISO 1000, 1/640s @ f/6.3 manual.

[Rhys Marsh]

Wow, fantastic bokeh and very interesting composition with the lichen. This works for me because you were able to accomplish such a simple background. Very beautiful to look at!

[Randy Stout]

Bill:

I think your instinct about the perch is correct. There is just so much detail there, that it tends to outcompete the bird, which is nice in its own right. Nice pose, and the downward shoot tends to balance out the bird.

Cheers

Randy

[Dennis Zaebst]

I like this one a lot Bill. You have achieved a magnificent photo with great sharpness, great light, and a terrific OOF BG. The lichen does compete a bit with the subject, but hey, that's where the bird chose to perch, and he must have lichened it. Still a gorgeous image. Very well done!

[Marina Scarr]

A lovely capture and while the perch does compete with the bird, I think a different crop would help that issue. I would crop from the right and bottom to take him out of center and make him more a focus by removing more of the bird vegetation (which I actually like) just not as much.

[dankearl]

I really like this one, Bill.
Perch is not too much for me, a lot of interest and the muted BG and bird look very nice.
I like Marina's crop idea's but at iso1000 with the D7000, it might get noisy if you cropped less.
If you can retain IQ, I would do as she suggested.
A fine backyard bird photo!

[David Salem]

Very nice capture Bill. Nice pose on this Finch and the exposure looks great. Nice feather detail and BG. I think the lichens on the perch are a little big for the scene. Nice work.

[Bill Dix]

Thanks all. Here's another version. I went back to the master file, and cropped from right and bottom to bring the bird out of the center. I retained more perch on the left to make it a 3:2 ratio. It is a pretty large crop (45% of original width, same as the OP), so I was reluctant to crop any more lest I degrade the IQ any further. I do believe it reduces the dominance of the perch, at least a little. I can't decide if I like it better, since I did like the hanging lichen; I'm curious to know what you think. (Edit: on second thought, looking at the preview, I do think I like it better. Thanks for the suggestion.)