Another day, another Houe Finch

[Diane Miller]

Attracted to a feeder. Arranged perch. Canon 5D Mk III, 300mm f/2.8 IS + 1.4X III. ISO 400, f/14, 1/200 sec for fill flash in full sun. Tripod with Wimberley head. From a hide.

[Greg Oakley]

Stunning image Diane! Beautiful colours, pose and background. Only a personal thing, but did you consider a more (traditional) horizontal crop? Also love it as is though...
Cheers, Greg

[Diane Miller]

Thanks, Greg. Unfortunately I had the top center sensor on the fidgety bird, and he was too centered for my tastes in the capture. (No time to recompose, even with back-button focus. He kept moving.) I could make it a little more landscape-format by cropping from the top and bottom, but wouldn't want to go too tight there. Maybe he'll pose again another day.

[dankearl]

Nice IQ and perch.
I would crop to just below the birds tail and a slither off the top and right side for a traditional crop.
It would look much better for me.

[PhilCook]

Love detail Diane, good use of fill flash as well, perch looks rather nice with the dried leaves....looks like some of us have slightly different thoughts on cropping, so I'll throw my 2 cents worth in lol....I feel cropping just to the underside of the bottom leaf....but really it's just as nice a sis I think

[Satish Ranadive]

Diane;
Magnificent image of finch on beautiful perch with nice colored leaves.
I like the pose,HA and nice BG.
Another vote for cropping at the bottom.

Regards,
Satish

[Marina Scarr]

Terrific image and pose. Love the light and the color palate. I would take some off of the bottom right to under the bottom leaves.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Good job with the flash. I like the perch alot, and the subject looks good too. I too would crop a bit from bottom, and bummer about the clipped leaf at left edge. There is a bit of a line running along the top of the perch (especially noticeable at left), was there some processing done there?

[Diane Miller]

Thanks for the comments! Here's a re-processed version with a more horizontal crop, just some from the right now, and a little from the top and bottom. The left edge had a partial leaf hanging vertically that had to go, but now it feels a little empty there. I should maybe trim a little more from the left edge.

I agree the more horizontal crop is better. In the original, I think there is a bit of a low-opacity cloning glitch above the perch on the left. The left part of the perch was darkened with Nik Viveza, for it's great masking abilities, but I've never seen it leave edge artifacts. It's amazing.