House Finch

[Nonda Surratt]

Why are these little Finchetts so blasted hard to make a good image of?:-) Took almost a year to get something credible..blah!:) Would have been nice to get the whole bird and the BG isn't, well isn't. Made it the Pitt at Dawes ( I call their bird feeding station the Pitt because of no light) QM to remove bird feeder part.

30D+300f2.8+2xtc @ f7.1, ISO 640, 1/250

[Robert Amoruso]

Agree with you that the light is the problem. The head turn and close-up is AOK and nice detail in the feathers. This is where fill-flash does the trick. When I photograph Florida Scrub Jays here, even in a good light, they come out looking well drab. Since starting to use fill flash all the time on them, the results are superior.

[Alfred Forns]

Agree with Robert that a "kiss" of flash will make a difference

I do like the pose very much Direct eye contact is great At this distances would concentrate more on point of focus as you did Getting enough dof is usually not possible !!! I like this image a lot !!!

[Nonda Surratt]

Thanks Alfred and Robert..Don't own a flash, its on my list
Re-futzed with, contrast, bit of saturation and curves..Did it help?

[Alfred Forns]

Big time help Nonda I like it brighter Remember to check the histogram closely Data spilling to the last box on the right is a must !!!!

[Robert Amoruso]

Repost looks better. Nice work.

[Nonda Surratt]

Good deal, thanks again.

[Harold Davis]

beautiful bird, nonda. i like the portrait.

[Nonda Surratt]

Thanks Harold.

[Blake Shadle]

Hi, Nonda. I'm a little late to the party ;) I like the improvements you've made so far, and you did a good job making the initial capture. One thing that I see that would be easy to change and strengthen the image would be composition. If we're going to have a shot of a partial bird, let's really make it look intentional and that will help the image.

My suggested crop is below:

[Nonda Surratt]

Thanks Blake

Appreciate you taking the time! Will give your crop suggestion a try, its cropped in the first place I just wasn't sure how or how much.

[Blake Shadle]

I was going to ask about that ;) Depending on the size of the initial crop, my suggestion may be out of reach.

[Nonda Surratt]

Not much of a crop, so your suggestion should work