Jackdaw

[William Dickson]

Canon 7D
Canon F/2.8 300mm with 1x4TCiii
f/6.3
1/1600
ISO 800

Any advice greatly appreciated

[gail bisson]

Hi William,
This would be so nice if that tangle of branches wasn't there.
The bird is sharp and has an interesting tilt to the head but the eye is pulled away by the busy BG.
Do you have more room down below? You could crop out some of the mess up top and since the bird appears to be on a downward trajectory, having more space below would improve the composition. It also would help the BG as it looks like there is less branches below.
If you do not have more room below I would crop this tight as a panorama and that would get rid of some of the branches.
Gail

[Randy Stout]

William:

I think Gail has given excellent advice. The bird by itself is quite nice, as is the rock background, but the clutter from the branches really pulls the eye. I would try her suggestions.

Cheers

Randy

[William Dickson]

139197

[gail bisson]

The repost is better but I would leave the canvas you had on the left .
If not against your ethics I would clone out the 2 branches exiting the birds right armpit ( the one that extends to the LHS of frame and the other one that extends to the bottom of the frame). It would lessen the impact of the branches but still retain the environment you are tryin to portray,
gail

[Iain Barker]

Hi William

Good sharp image of the bird that is well captured.
I agree with Gail's comments. Without the twigs this would have been fantastic as the exposure and the IQ of the bird look spot on. Your repost also seems to have lost some of the detail you had in the OP especially on the birds left wing and tail.

Iain

[arash_hazeghi]

I like the dorsal view, I'd try to recover more detail on the blacks. the main issue here is the cluttered BG

TFS