Scissor-tailed flycatcher in habitat

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

http://gallery.photo.net/photo/10508650-lg.jpg

This one is from last summer...a personal favorite. They come here from Mexico to breed.

40D. 300 f/4L non-IS and 1.4x. iso 400. f/5.6. 1/2000. exp. comp +1/3rd. Evening light. I havent done any BG blurring....just some NR that has causes a little softness.

Does the crop work or should I take some off the right? I cropped it like this because the bird is looking directly out of the frame on that side..I thought a little extra room would look good. Does it?

[Randy Stout]

Kaustubh:

Very interesting bird, well captured. Good exposure, head angle and sharpness.

I like the environmental component, wishing only that the one OOF grass crossing the body wasn't there.

re: crop. Because the tail is so long, it gives you lots of room to the right already, when looking at the head, to right edge distance, so I would in fact crop in just short of the bright yellow flower in RLC.

I might tone down the light area in the background beside the head.

Very nice.

Cheers

Randy

[Lorant Voros]

Kaustubh,

This is a beautiful bird indeed that is not easy to fit into a composition. Randy's suggestions covered pretty much what I wanted to say. I like this image very much too. TFS.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Pose, angle and sharpness look good. I might crop a tad off top and right but not much and would try to remove the OOF grass in front of the wing tips and tip of the tail.

[Don Lacy]

These birds are so hard to compose in the frame but you did a good job here I also like the suggestion by Axel to take a little off the top and right side as long as you keep the same aspect ratio.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Beautiful presentation. I like most of the habitat, but would prefer the whitish blotches in URC not be there and same for the yellow flower above your name. Good job on the techs. I'm torn on the comp...I'd see this with about 1/3 of the space at LEFT cropped away (and a sliver on top too). Very subjective, eh!

[Stu Bowie]

I like the pose, light and colours in this. Comp wise, I would have gone with Dan's idea.

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Thx everyone. Yes...the cropping is very subjective and I typically stuggle with it a lot. I think I will try out and check. But one thing I like abt the crop-little-from-right idea is that it will take out the bright OOF spot near the URC. I had not thought of cropping more from top because if possible, I like to adhere to rule-of-thirds. will give it a try.

really really appreciated.

[Dave Leroy]

Very nice photo. I really like the soft feel to it as well as the habitat. Lots of good suggestions offered. Dave

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

repost with crop from right and top.

http://gallery.photo.net/photo/10511981-lg.jpg

[Ted Willcox]

I love the posture of the bird and the composition a lot. Nice exposure and sharpness. I like your repost better but would now take a litte more off the left and top. Our recrop fom you first post leaving more on the right
Ted