Cuckoo

[Alexander Koenders]

Sitting on top of a little tree waving his wing against the rain? This was a great moment. Do you remember Jeroen;)

Olympus E510, Zuiko pro lens 50-200 f2.8/3.5, Zuiko 1.4 converter, F5.6, 1/250 sec, ISO 400, 0 stap

[Maxis Gamez]

Excellent pose and BG but I wish your subject was in focus.

[Jasper Doest]

Excellent pose and composition of a very cool subject...but as Maxis I wish it was sharp.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Great pose and setting. I'm wondering whether the head is slightly OOF or if it is motion blur.

[Jody Melanson]

Interesting subject, great pose, nice BG. Besides the sharpness, personally I would also crop this square by chopping off the right side.

[john jackson]

Great pose!

I'm not sure that sharpness is the problem here. The eye looks sharp on my screen, and the movement in the wing adds something for me that does not detract from the image. But, there is something odd with the look of the bird's plain grey chest that makes me wonder if there is some noise reduction going on? If so, Alexander, I would process the image again. If that is not noise reduction, maybe do something counter intuitive and add a little grain to it for a bit of texture. Or, perhaps downsizing has added the strange look to the plain area?

[Jeroen Stel]

As i was there with Alex, and i do remember that afternoon well.....(hard to forget 5 Cuckoo's flying around us..!!)
I also remember how hard it was to shoot this scene as there was wind and a bit of rain and on top of that the Cuckoo was balancing on this very small perch...So the answer to this is slight motion blur....
I got the same shot with some twigs in front of the Cuckoo due to the wind, so i really think this is quite an achievement!

Well done and hope we can get these guys in front of our lens again next season!

Greetings,

Jeroen Stel

[Manos Papadomanolakis]

I really like the eye of the bird!

[Glenn Bartley]

Its a really cool pose. I just wish that it was a bit more in focus.