Red-winged Blackbird

[Joseph Przybyla]

Fog, overcast, yucky weather in Florida now. I captured this image yesterday morning in the fog. Comments and critique welcomed and appreciated. Thank you for viewing.

Nikon D7000
Nikon 80-400mm F/4.5-5.6 VRII AF-S ED shot at 360mm (540mm FFE)
1/1000 F/5.6 Matrix Metering + 2 EV ISO 900
Post processed in Lightroom 5 and Photoshop Elements 10
Cropped for composition, a few extraneous twigs cleaned up

[Colin Driscoll]

I'm a fan of high key images, but unfortunately your bird is quite soft focus. Looking along the main branch the DOF appears to be just in front of the bird.

[Wheeler McDougal Jr.]

I have taken literally 100s of images of Red Wing Blackbirds and I know how difficult they are. I think yours is very good especially considering that it is an high key. I will say that I think the focus is very good. The eye is sharp and the exposure is especially good considering the bird and the eye are black and you can discern the eye with no trouble. Over-all great image.

[gail bisson]

The colors in the epaulettes are well shown in the image.
The fog makes the bird look soft but I don't think it is. These types of images are tricky because on the one hand you want to keep the atmospheric feel of the fog, but if effect is too heavy then the bird looks soft. I might try to bump up the contrast on the bird a bit more,
Gail

[Joseph Przybyla]

Thanks everyone for viewing and commenting, very much appreciated.