Field Songs #2: Field Sparrow

[Bill Dix]

Here's another field bird that often perches on the multiflora rose (or anything else that sticks above the grasses) so he can broadcast his constant field song: a series of accelerating notes on a single pitch, often described as the sound of someone dropping a ping pong ball.

D500f4 + 1.4 TC, ISO 800, 1/500s @ f/7.1 manual, fill @ -2.0.

[Karen Pleasant]

Another great image, Bill! Very nice singing pose, lighting, and creamy background. I do have a question. The leaf parallel to his/her breast has nice details in the veining and texture. But the bird's head and feathers seem a bit soft to my eyes. Could this be a slight loss in detail from converting to jpg?

[Bill Dix]

Another great image, Bill! Very nice singing pose, lighting, and creamy background. I do have a question. The leaf parallel to his/her breast has nice details in the veining and texture. But the bird's head and feathers seem a bit soft to my eyes. Could this be a slight loss in detail from converting to jpg?

Thanks Karen. The bird's eye, and much of the plumage, look sharp on my screen. The throat area and the tail maybe less so. The focus point was on the eye (if you can believe Nikon View NX-i). I don't think it's conversion. Maybe DOF?

[Richard Flack]

Nice perch and background Bill. The beak and head look a little soft on my screen, otherwise lovely image. TFS

[Geoffrey Montagu]

Beautiful image, Bill. Nice IQ with very soft light. Like the left wingtip resting on the leaf. Well done.




Geoffrey

[gail bisson]

This is a lovely image Bill.
Love the soft light and the green tones throughout the image.
Really like the way the wingtip is draped over the leaf.
My only suggestion would be to take a sliver off the top.
I really like the diagonal line of the main stem. If I was to be super picky I might be tempted to clone out the partial leaf that is leaving the LHS of the frame and prune down the stem it is on.
The sharpness looks good to me.
Excellent HA and singing pose.
A real gem Bill!
gail

[Mike Poole]

Not always an easy task to make LBJ's (Little Brown Jobbies on this side of the pond!) interesting, but the combination of perch, bird angle and singing pose have done the job nicely here

Mike

[Diane Miller]

Beautiful! Another one with a great perch! I might remove the piece of the leaf on the left border.

[Satish Ranadive]

Magnificent image. Spectacular composition.
Love the pose, perch, colours, BG and composition.

Regards,
Satish.

[Frank Schauf]

Excellent shot with a great perch.

[keith mitchell]

Like everything about this Bill, not such a bright bird as your last post but a very nice image none the less.

Keith.

[Norm Dulak]

Beautiful image Bill. These charming little birds constantly sing in conservation areas we preserve, and nest in our orchard. This image is excellent!

[adrian dancy]

You have a jewel here...everything to like.

[Bill Dix]

Thanks everyone. Your comments and suggestions are much appreciated. I'll go back and remove that piece of leaf from the master file.

[Bill Dix]

Here's the repost, with leaflet removed. (It looked odd to take out part of the associated stem, so I left that in.) I also applied just a bit more selective sharpening to head and throat. Thanks for the suggestions.

[Diane Miller]

This works for me! I agree about leaving the stem in but a possibility is to reduce the highlights on it near the edge, with a gradient starting at the remaining leaf. The Clone tool set to Darken and low opacity might do the trick easily, with the right sample point. But excellent as is in any case!

[Karen Pleasant]

Repost looks excellent!