Plum-headed Finch

[Simon Bennett]

Rob Drummond lent me his Diamond Dove waterhole near Winton Qld, no dove for me, but this male Plum-headed Finch lobbed in.

Canon 40D, EF500 f/4 + 1.4 tc, tripod, Evaluative, AV, ISO 125, f/7.1, 1/500. A tiny bit cropped from right and a sliver of twig digitally removed from behind his hind neck.

[Rob Smith]

Lovely shot Simon. Spent many hours trying to get these when I was in Dalby Qld but could never get one as good as this. Rob Drimmond - Hmm, would that be the same Rob Drummond from Hamilton Vic?

[Ryan Lambert]

Super image here Simon, good detail,comp and well exposed I think with the 1.4tc, f8 would have gotten the leg and foot a bit sharper...

[Krijn Trimbos]

Cool species, nice pose, eye contact and colours. Would suggest when an oppertunity like this reveiles itself to use a smaller aperture to get more DOF as it would have been nice IMHO to have the top of the head IF as well. Would be interesting to see this with a little more room on top and a little less on the bottom. In any case a very nice shot.

[Daniel Cadieux]

A wonderful little species, and a good head turn it offered you here. I would definitely desature the sky as it is too "electric" as is. A bit more sharpening to the face would be good to bring it on par with the body - critical focus seems to be on body body/wing tips.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Beautiful bird, good head angle and eye contact. I agree regarding desaturating the sky a few points and sharpening the upper part of the head more. On the 40D ISO 200 looks very good and would have allowed you to stop down more for wider DOF. Maybe a bit more room at the top?

[Aidan Briggs]

Ditto Daniel. The bright blue sky immediately caught my attention. I would prefer this one with a BG of distant foliage or dirt.

[Ramon M. Casares]

Very nice pose and detail, colors and species, sharpness is great and I think fill flash would have helped here to get rid of the not ideal light angle shadows.
Congratulations.

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Awesome details Simon. Love the clean BG, the perch is perfect. Stunning little Aussie character! :)