Eurasian Siskin

[Verena Meraldi]

These Siskins were amongst the regular visitors to our feeders during the winter. We hardly see them now, and I miss their beautiful colors...
C&C greatly appreciated!

Verena

Nikon D3s, Sigma 150-500 @500mm, ISO 800, 1/250, f6.3, manual mode, image made 2/14/2010

[Grace Scalzo]

What a colorful little bird. I like the wintery feel to your image with bright bird against the steely gray background. In this image I like the straight on angle as you have eye contact with your subject.

[Phil Ertel]

Hi Verena,
I like the feel/mode of this image. The cool simple background and the branch devoid of leaves isolates the bird very nicely. I like that you have kept the bird some what small in frame as I think it adds to the mode. The eye contact commands my attention and draws me into the image. Nicely captured and thanks for sharing.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the simplicity and wintery light and it is great to see the European siskin variety. I agree with Grace, the head-on look works well here and I might only sharpen the bird a bit more.

[Daniel Cadieux]

That snow sure worked as a nice reflector from below! Great straigh on pose, but the bird's right eye (our left) looks strange to me. Some work on it would really improve the look of this little guy's stare. Nice curved perch, and I like your chosen comp (perhaps some taken off from above would work too - very subjective of course).

[John Chardine]

Very nice Verena! This image is a lesson in good composition with the "rule of thirds" working perfectly in this case. Also love the lines and scale of the perch and the splash of yellow against the greyish BG.

[Verena Meraldi]

Thank you all for your feedback. I wasn't sure about sharpening more, but I did and I think it's better now, you were right! I also tried (notice I said tried!) to do some work on the eye and cropped very slightly on the top. As always, I'm much more satisfied with the image after following your suggestions :) Thanks again.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

The repost is a very good improvement, I have one suggestion, though. When you sharpen, you should exclude the background as it caused some noise.

[Verena Meraldi]

I didn't realize that when I reposted, thanks Axel! Here it is again...

[Verena Meraldi]

But now that I look at the image again, maybe I should have sharpened the branch a little bit??

[Axel Hildebrandt]

But now that I look at the image again, maybe I should have sharpened the branch a little bit??

I would sharpen the branch a bit, too.