Almost got it!

[Todd Frost]

D300, 400 2.8 w/tc, 1/1500, f4, iso400.
Black-capped Chickadee with an itch.
Thanks for looking, comments and critiques appreciated.
Todd

[Randy Stout]

Todd:

Great expression here, fun action.

I might try to simplify the image by getting ride of some of the upper background. I would try to tone down the horizontal band that intersects with the head.

There is a slight green color cast.

The whites are a bit hot on face and upper breast.

Again, the pose is great, fits these lively fellows, so worth a little tweaking I think.

Cheers

Randy

[Ilija Dukovski]

Very nice pose, and you got nice eye contact.
Agree with Randy and would try to clean up the BG
the white band and patch most importantly.
I wish the tiny branch in the front was not there but does
not distract too much IMO.

[Justin Reznick]

Great pose! The pink of its open mouth really adds a nice pop in the color spectrum of the image. Randy did a great critique, I agree with all his bg suggestions.

[Mark Adkins]

I like the color, exposure and te mouth. Agree that the band across the head and the branch in the LLC would be removed if you believe in that type of modification.

Mark

[Todd Frost]

Thanks for the comments guys. Randy, I don't see the cast and checked it in two different apps (CS3, ACDSee Pro2.5). Any help re. this would be appreciated.
Todd

[Randy Stout]

Todd:

The cast is obviously subtle, since no one else mentioned it, but I have lots of chickadees here and know them well, and on both my monitors here, it appears to have a cast.

I opened it in PS CS4, and used Robert O'toole's average color blur technique. At 100%, the change was too dramatic, with a shift towards the blues, but I reduced the opacity by about 50%, and thought it looked more natural.

Color perception is an incredibly complex process on a physiologic basis, and there is a lot of variation between different people. The bottom line is, that unless you consistently have people comment about your images in regards to a color cast, and you know your monitor is correctly calibrated, I wouldn't worry to much about it.

I am perhaps a bit more sensitive to that issue because of my line of work.

The difference in the repost is pretty subtle, you almost have to go back and forth, but I do think the repost is more accurate, at least for my Chickadees!

Cheers

Randy

[Stu Bowie]

Todd, lovely behavioural shot, and with his open beak, he's obviously enjoying his scratch.

[Todd Frost]

Thanks Randy, good to know it is very subtle. I tried the average/blur also with same result. Thanks for taking the time for repost and explaination.
Todd