Another Cardinal in the snow

[Bill Dix]

D90; 80-400 VR @ 370mm. 800 ISO. f/7.1 @ 1/2000s. +0.7 EV. HH.

Here's the mate of the male Northern Cardinal I posted yesterday. From one of our late February snowstorms. Here again, the IQ has suffered from shooting through a glass door. ~30% crop; slight adjustments in Levels; brightened the eye and cleaned a bit of snow off the bill; USM. C&C welcome.

[Alfred Forns]

Amazing quality for shooting through glass, like it a lot Exposure is dead on and great tones on that bird !! Sweet !!!

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Bill,

Nice given the extra glass. I might run some selective sharpening but overall agree with Al - sweet.

[Bob Miller]

Hi Billl. You have the texture in the feathers as well as the snow....nice exposure...

[Ray Rozema]

Agree with above amazing that this was done thru glass door. Agree w a little more sharpening.

TFS

[Lance Peters]

Sweet -amazing for shooting through glass - looks sharp enough on my screen.
Good show :)

[Dave Mills]

Hi Bill, Definately clean glass to get such a sharp image. Nice exposure with detail in the snow!

[OvidiuCavasdan]

Very good exposure, details and I like the clean snow around bird. You did very well shooting through glass!!!

[Bill Dix]

Thank you all for the comments. I've had mixed luck with shooting through my back door. On occasion I can get something really sharp, like the Northern Flicker from earlier this month - http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php?t=58439. It works best if the lens barrel is almost touching the glass to avoid any reflection, interior lights turned off, and aiming at right angles to the glass. But this Cardinal, while it shows some feather detail, does not appear on my screen as crisp as it would if shot outdoors. Still, the house is a useful blind: when I try sitting just inside the house but with the storm door open, some of the birds (esp WT Sparrows) refuse to come out of hiding until I close the door. So is it better to get the slightly compromised shot or not get it at all ? -- I'll take the shot, until I can get a better one of the species out-of-doors. Thanks for looking.

[Mark Young]

Love that you guys can use the snow as the bg for your images. I'ld love to be able to do that. The birds look great in the snow

[arash_hazeghi]

Very nice exposure Bill, like the eye contact and HA, did the best given you were behind glass.

[Oscar Zangroniz]

Love the contrast between the bird and the snow. Great image with fine details.
Congrats