Winter's coming!

[Jonathan Ashton]

Taken from my garden hide, I appreciate not exactly the most stunning pose but I was amazed to find a Siskins (2) in my back yard at this time of year. if I use this perch again I will angle the left side backwards to improve DOF.

Olympus E-M1X
LensModel : OLYMPUS M.300mm F4.0
Lens focal length : 300 mm
Focal Length (35 mm conversion) : 600.0mm
Metering mode : Pattern
Exposure mode : Manual exposure
ISO Sensitivity : 400
Exposure time : 1/1000 sec
F number : F6.3
Exposure compensation : -0.3 EV
Flash : OFF

[Bill Dix]

Nice colors and curly perch. To my eyes the bird could use a touch more USM or Topaz Sharpen AI.

[Dorian Anderson]

Lovely lighting, perch, and background, Jonathan. The disinterested gaze is a bit rough, and I think Bill's sharpening suggestion is a good one. I would also like to see more canvas to the right, the disclaiming being that I hate any crop which approaches a square. So, take it or leave it....

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Jon, nice to see the Hazel being used in a different location.

I don't have an issue with the square crop, but I would like a tad more below. A slight head turn perhaps, but happy as is. It's bit dark on the blacks and slightly sooty for me Jon, you can up the Exp a bit more before clipping, but addressing the black & Contrast opens up far more. In doing so you can increase the Sat & Lum increasing the richness of the image. I might burn the HL's in the hazel or run a Luminace layer to reduce the brighter parts and bings some tonal areas back too. Have you considered 'wetting' the perch to reduce HL's? The head and eye do require some more localised USM.

If you haven't left, have a good week, hope you find some interesting species.

TFS
Steve

[gail bisson]

Nice bird and love the corkscrew hazel perch.
Agree that the HA is not ideal. Nice BG.
Would prefer a landscape crop.
Nice sighting,
Gail

[John Mack]

Neat looking perch. Framing and background are right on.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Back home now! Thanks very much for your comments everyone, I will take another look and bare in mind your suggestions.