Cedar Waxwing

[Kevin Haw]

[IMG]https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5546/14136709060_63687c5b58_c.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/nxdk67)


Nikon D5100
Sigma 150-500
500mm
Iso 640
SS 1/1000
F 6.3

[Tyler Hartje]

I love how you framed the bird in this photo, and managed to get the catchlight in it's eye. Great work!

[David Kenny]

I really like the composition of this one. The bird appears nice and sharp and it has nice light hitting it. I find that the bright branch above the birds head competes with the bird. cloning that branch may really make this shot even better. lets see what others have to say about it. Either way it is still a keeper in my book.

Dave

[Diane Miller]

You got a nice bird on a lovely perch. The sunlight does work well for the bird itself -- they seem to have very streamlined feathers with little detail, so hard light may not be a bad thing. But it does make the perch compete for attention with the bird. I would clone out the topmost branch, and I think a lower contrast processing might be worth a look.

There are a couple of spots on the BG that should be removed, and the tiny piece of a branch in the very upper right.

[Edward Arthur]

I really like this one. These guys have very tight smooth feathers so detail is hard to get. Good lighting here helps a lot. At least around my area, they tend to be very high up in the trees so make a challenging subject.

Maybe tone down the green/yellow saturation in the BG as Diane once suggested to me. It really does help.

[Tim Harding]

Nice light and exposure on the bird. My eye keeps moving back and forth between the bright leaves above his head and the dark ones at the end of the lower branch. You could either clone out the upper branch as suggested by others or even just try darkening the leaves a bit. Maybe lighten the leaves a little bit on the end of the perch to give it more tonal balance.

A crop that includes just the bird and the flower/leaf clusters on either side of it with the top branch removed might work too.

Nice capture - I'm still waiting to get a keeper of one of these.

[Linda Dulak]

I'm a real fan of cedar waxwings but have a hard time getting a good photo. Well done. If this were mine I might try a different crop into a vertical. I'd crop the last clump of flowers and leaves off the branch leaving a nice vertical image. That would keep the tonalities between the top cluster and the last on the branch more even. The very dark last cluster keeps taking my eye away trying to see more detail there.

Linda