Vibrations

[Bogdan Coltea]

It's the same female redstart (as in the first post), but doing something different.
I wanted to capture a bit more than a portrait, so I've tried a different exposure setting.
Basically - closed down to f/10 and reduced the shutter speed at 1/60th, to get a nice effect on the tail movement, while keeping the bird sharp enough.
I wasn't expecting it to sing as well, so that was a pleasant surprise :)
Hope you like it. C&C welcome.
Thanks for looking!

Bogdan

Tech stuff
Nikon D80 & Tamron 200-500 @ 500mm
f/10, 1/60, ISO800
Manual Exposure, spot metering

[Juan Aragonés]

Great idea and great result. I love the blurred tail because tells a lot about this bird behaviour. I would try to tone down the BG a litle bit and to add a touch of light with PS at the eye area. Some increase in the tail saturation would be great because this species has a very colorfull tail that it is not showed here as its best due to blurring. Something like this (please, let me know what do you think about the repost)::)

[Bogdan Coltea]

I think lighting up the eye is a great idea. I'd have never thought of it. Looks a lot better.
The tail saturation is also good advice. I did boost it a little bit, but not enough (afraid of overdoing it mainly).

The tone on the BKGR was my biggest fear.
As noted on my first post, the soft green tones really work with the image.
Toning them down with curves gave me a mixed result. It increased the contrast and saturation and made it look a bit off. Similar to your edit, but you had to work on a finished image and it's quite hard to avoid it.
I'll try again using a different method (maybe S/H on highlights only or the 'exposure' adjustment for the BKGR).
Thank you

Bogdan

Later edit:
I've posted a second version with Juan's advice in mind.

[Bob Malbon]

Nice re-post on the tail and eye. My only issue is the bottom left BG blending into the tail. Bob

[Juan Aragonés]

Bogdan the key to rework the BG without affecting the bird is to duplicate the layer, select the BG and delete in the upper layer. Then you go to the lower layer and made your dajustments to the BG. Once that you do that you can go to the upper layer and, using a browse y delete mode, work on the edges of the bird to look for a natural result. Please have a look on the following thread in which I explain more details about that (http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php?t=11412)
. Also tyou can do it using a Quick Mask technique but I am not good with that method and you should ask Robert O´Toole or Artie abut that.

[Bogdan Coltea]

Thank you Juan for sharing your technique. Outstanding result on Arthur's hummer!
I usually rely on selective adjustments using layers and masks, but definitely need to improve my accuracy on that.

[Juan Aragonés]

Thanks Bogdan I think that you can have a lot of learning oportunities in this site because there are a lot of members sharing information, tricks and suggestions. Feel free to comment on other members images and made your own critics, is an excelent way to improve our knowledge