Palm Warbler

[Geoffrey Montagu]

Yesterday was one of our more spectacular warm October days here in NJ. Amongst many kinds of passerines and the occasional Merlin, Northern Harrier, in a local preserve, this beautiful Palm Warbler decided to land on a perch in front of a tangle of poison ivy vines. The vines were covered with dried seeds, a favorite to dine on. C&C welcome.

D700, 500mm + 1.4 tc, 1/320, f 7.1, ff, ISO 640, Gitzo tripod, Wimberley Gimbal head.

Removed a number of distracting branches, added selective S/H in cs6.


Geoffrey

[Bill Dix]

A beauty, Geoffrey. For me, getting clear, unobstructed shots of warblers in the field is the holy grail. This one gave you a perfect pose. I'm amazed that you were able to catch him full-frame, in such a nice comp. Only nit is that the mottled background might be evened out just a bit.

[Shawn Zierman]

The bird looks awesome, great pose, really nice shooting angle on your part....pretty well see the whole warbler here, which is a detail that I appreciate. The perch is nicely sized. There are processing halos around the perch that don't look the greatest, so whatever you are using to de-select the perch from the background needs to be fine tuned...., and the background looks too processed in terms noise reduction and or softening. Regardless, the warbler rocks and overall makes up for any slight technical issues with processing.

[Jim Crosswell]

I like the pose, details and sharpness of the Warbler. Good points raised by Shawn. Nice image Geoffrey.

[Geoffrey Montagu]

The bird looks awesome, great pose, really nice shooting angle on your part....pretty well see the whole warbler here, which is a detail that I appreciate. The perch is nicely sized. There are processing halos around the perch that don't look the greatest, so whatever you are using to de-select the perch from the background needs to be fine tuned...., and the background looks too processed in terms noise reduction and or softening. Regardless, the warbler rocks and overall makes up for any slight technical issues with processing.

Thanks Shawn. Thank you also for processing issues pointed out. They are most likely due to the massive amount of work removing branches, and it's no excuse, pun intended, hard to see the trees for the forest at times. Absolutely no excuse for the perch halos.

Geoffrey

[gail bisson]

A great warbler to capture in the clear!
Bird looks great and other than the halo around the perch the processing in the BG looks good to me.
Gail

[Daniel Cadieux]

Great looking bird and you got it in a nice perky pose. Sharp and well exposed. I'm in agreement with Shawn about the processing...but so are you. Well balanced comp BTW!