Feeding

[José Rodríguez]

These little birds (pardillo - carduelis cannabina) use to feed on these flowers (tajinaste - echium aculeatum). I have edited this pic, using capture NX 1.3.
Nikon D300, nikkor 80-400 VR + TC1.4x , handheld , fill flash

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3618/3597265521_0166caeab9_o.jpg

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the feeding pose, perch and eye contact. The catchlight looks a bit prominent and wish the BG were more uniform. How much of a crop is this?

[Arthur Morris]

Lovely bird, flower, and EXP. If you could have gotten a bit higher the cloud would have been a better frame. My first question was about the catch light.... It seems to be on the bottom of the eye rather than the top. Did you create it?

[José Rodríguez]

Axel, Arthur, it's about a 50% crop. I'm afraid, that catch light was added by me, and as you notice, I also think it's not appropriate in size and position. What I found amazing in this shot was that my 80-400 + tc1.4 could deliver handheld this results!
Thanks a lot for your comments!

[Arthur Morris]

Hey Jose, Gotcha! Here are some tips for creating catchlights:

1-Use a tiny Clone Stamp.
2-Choose a white area in the frame as your source.
3-If you take a close look at a natural highlight, you will see that they are always irregularly shaped and the most prominent one is almost always in the top half of the eye on the side where the light is coming from. Many times there is a faint highlight in the eye that is visible only at high magnification. In those cases, be sure to create your highlight there.
4-After carefully considering the placement of the highlight, use multiple clicks with the Clone Stamp with the Align box unchecked while moving the cursor a small bit with each click to give the highlight an irregular shape.

Many times it is more natural not to create a catchlight.

[José Rodríguez]

Thanks Arthur! Those tips are gold.
I'm afraid my capture nx has no clone tool, but I will find the way!

BTW, I ordered your "The Art of ...." on CD and can´t wait to get a look on it!

[Arthur Morris]

YAW. I posted an expanded tutorial in Educational Resources. It is my belief that photographers as talented as you should have Photoshop....

[José Rodríguez]

Arthur, thanks! You've made my day :-)