Assignment SOC

[Kent Wilson]

Golden-Crowned Kinglet.

Canon 50D, Canon 400mm F/5.6
ISO 400, 1/2000 f/5.6
Flash Comp -1 1/3

I took this two days ago. If I were going to "fix" it, the major things I'd do is I'd crop, clone out the twig under the chin, and clone out the twig in the upper left behind the wing.

Am I on the right track?

Thanks in advance for looking and for your comments.

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Nice image, though the pose looks like the typical "Oh crap, I have just been flashed by the evil birdarazzi!". Your clone idea is fine for my liking, in fact, I would clone as much of the BG branches as possible, as they do make the iamge look busy. Great looking little birdie though! :)

[Christopher Miller]

Kent, nice pose. Love the look he's giving you! Agree on cloning the twigs out. Looks to me like your focus point might have been a bit off as much of the bird looks a bit soft. Some selective sharpening would probably help with that.

[Lance Peters]

Hi Chris - good head angle and a bit of a startled pose.

The work you mentioned on the BG will improve it - always best to try and get as close you can in camera and then less to do after in PP.

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Kent You are on the right track !!!

Sharp eye on the focus Chris The little guy could be sharper in the raw !! These are hard to do and normally require a 600 !!! .. you can use a 1.4X on your lens and get fine results ... just need to use manual focus !!! ... becomes an 800 f8.0 !!

[Kent Wilson]

Thanks for the suggestions.

As for sharpness, in the full sized version, there's lots of feather detail in the body. Unfortunately, the wings are definitely problematic. While these little guys are awfully quick, I think the shutter speed would have been sufficient to stop their motion (but maybe not?). I suspect that the wings are out of the plane of focus for the 400 at f/5.6. Or could it be combining fill flash with the ambient light?

[Gus Cobos]

I like the capture Kent,
your assessment of your own composition is dead on...agree with the techs. mentioned. I would like to see the little guy a bit to the left side of the frame...good show...:cool: