Kea

[Simon Bennett]

Kea photographed in mountains near Milford Sound, South Island, New Zealand. These large alpine parrots are very tame and often perch on parked cars. It was a minor challenge finding one on a natural looking perch.

Canon 40D, EF 70-200mm f/4 @ 160mm, handheld, evaluative, ISO 320, f/5, 1/250, full frame.

[Robert O'Toole]

What an image, congrats, I love all the feather details and rich colors. I like how the BG and subject tones match. Well done, I like it very much.

These guys are famous or infamous for eating cars.....well the rubber bits at least.

If this were my image I would tone down some of the areas on the top of the stone perch and maybe get rid of the small dark patch in the URC.

Robert

[Dave Mills]

Thought I could bring the image up somewhat. Took it into PS and played with Shad/Hglts. I fine tuned with levels and took some areas out of the backround.
I added a small bit of saturation and came up with this.
The subject is very interesting and I thought you handled the composition well.

[Tony Whitehead]

Nice image, Simon. Good use of DOF to cover the bird while still rendering a nicely blurred BG. The feather textures are lovely. Compositionally I would prefer a little more room above and in front which would have required backing off the zoom a little. I would have used a little fill flash at capture time to open up some of the darker areas and brighten the feathers to achieve a similar look to the repost. Good job getting it on a natural perch - they can be a challenge in the well frequented areas sometimes.

[Joe Senzatimore]

I'm with Tony on the use of fill. Otherwise it's a great image. The feather detail is awsome.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Great details and eye contact. Aside from lightening it a bit, I wish for a lower angle and a wider crop.

[Ian McHenry]

Hi Simon
Really like the natural colours, composition and bokeh.
A fine image.
Cheers: Ian Mc