Wren (Troglodytes troglodytes)

[Jonathan Ashton]

Hand held. The background has been cleaned up.
Olympus Om-1 300mm f4 & MC14 (840mm FF equiv).
ISO 3200, 1/1000sec f5.6

ACR/PSCC

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Jon ... nice one in general
Focus point does not seem to be on the head , tail looks a lot sharper than the head .... at least from my POV .

TFS Andreas

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Jon, I like the simplicity to the capture, background appears clean, but is there some 'fudging' in that lower half of the stem, something doesn't look right???

I would look at going warmer on the Temp and adding some Magenta to even out the colour swing ie +6 & +9 (numbers based on a 50 across RGB values). When you look at it SS around 3.5 inches high within bit more sharpening to the subject, I think it helps. as displayed I can see Andreas point. I would have preferred like you I'm sure, to have had the head facing rather than the less attractive rear, which is perhaps the less beautiful part of the wee bird.

TFS
Steve

[Jonathan Ashton]

Thanks Andreas & Steve. I will have a look at colours but in general happy. I feel plenty sharp enough, in fact I reduced the sharpening on this compared to many I have previously posted. I think it is a trick of the light that makes the tail appear sharper, the focus point is bang on the eye. I softened the bottom part of the stem.

PS: I added a little +6-9 as suggested - have to agree much better!

[Steve Kaluski]

Why did you soften it Jon, what was the reasoning, I thought it looked odd.

[Joseph Przybyla]

Hi Jon, nice littel Wren showing it's wagtail. I like the image, bird, background and perch work well together. I think the reason that the tail appears sharper than the eye and head is the tail is brighter while the eye and head are in a shadow. Lighten the rest of the body to match the brightness of the tail and all looks good. The eye picks up the brighter areas as being more sharp because of the contrast. Thank you for sharing.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Jo I think you are spot on, that is what I thought.
Steve the feathers looked a little too well delineated so I reduced sharpening. When you see a wren you tend not to see feather structure very clearly, the barbs are not usually very obvious.

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Jon and Joe .... interesting theory about the sharp /unsharp appearance of different parts of the body. I will leave the interpretation to you ... but keep my opinion as stated in my comment .
Agree with Steve the stem and the leg does look funky and wahed out in parts .
Do not get the point about your " reducing sharpening " .... but leave that to you , as i do not know your WF

But still a fine image for me Jon

TFS Andreas

[Dorian Anderson]

The BG is wonderful, but the subject is bth facing the wrong way (with the light coming from the right) and OOF (as the focal point was on the tail). Others have made some nice processing suggestions, but my concerns are capture-time and therefore not easily addressed after the fact. Woulda been great in direct light as these little guys are tough to get in the open.