Purple Finch Female with crest up

[Randy Stout]

This nice purple finch female visited my feeders a couple of days ago. I liked her attentive pose, raised crest, and subtle colors. The debris on the bill comes from the suet feeder I believe. I made several passes at cleaning it, but didn't like the results.

D300 500mm f/4 at f/6.3 1/500 second ISO 800 Ap Priority -.3 SB800 with Beamer -1.7 EC

Post in NX2 not much, small crop, minor sharpening.

jpeg compression cut out some of the lovely feather detail, esp. in the crest.

Comments always appreciated.

Randy

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

HEy leave the feed where it is. :) I like the comp, pose and fabulous feather detail. I would love to see one of your captures like this in warm evening light! THanks for sharing. It is gorgeous.

[Ilija Dukovski]

Very nice, great detail, most of all perfect BG subject match...
The feeder situation and food on beaks is always difficult, not too bad in this case.
Good work!

[Stu Bowie]

Super angled pose towards you Randy, which shows off the chest nicely. This is sharp, and what a killer BG. Well captured.

[Nate Chappell]

Really nice detail Randy, it seems that with that clean bg you may have been able to stop down to say F8 and possibly get more of the tail in focus as well.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the head angle, details and BG and might lower the color temperature a bit. A wider crop might work, too.

[Art Kornienko]

Love the pose, lighting and sharpness/detail along with the bg. Maybe just a touch more room top and bottom. Pretty clean for 800 ISO.

[Scott Elowitz]

Nice specimen and good feather detail and bg. IMHO the bird is a wee bit to big in the frame.