chicadee

[Gary Hamilton]

Canon 7D
Canon 300mm w/ 2x teleconverter
ISO 400
1/160 sec.
f/8

When life gives you chicadees . . . . I pretty much got skunked today so I had to make do with what I had in my backyard. Bird could have landed in a better spot to the left, but I think this still works (except maybe for the twig behind the head). C/C welcome.

[Randy Stout]

Gary:

Your chickadee is very sharp,well exposed, nice catchlight.

The corkscrew vine on the perch is really a fun and interesting component, like it a lot.

I would be seriously tempted to clone out the branch behind his head, as you mentioned, and might go all the way and remove the one under his tail as well.

Very pleasant BG

I think you did well, even though it wasn't what you wanted.

Cheers

Randy

[Tom Rambaut]

Agree with the branch behind the head, and I realy do like the twisted vine part of the picture. Nice BG.

[Pieter de Waal]

Nice sharp bird Gary with good defenition in the plumage. Like the perch as well and agree with removal of twigs behind the bird.

[Gary Hamilton]

Thanks for the suggestions and nice comments. I tried eliminating the twigs but not happy with results--my PS skills are just not where they should be. Am taking the full day PS course at NANPA in March, so that should help. I'll have to revisit this image to clean up twigs. My next post (of titmouse on same perch), which is coming up later today, is clean so no PS needed--thank goodness. I generally don't like to do a lot of pruning/landscaping in my images in the first place but acknowledge that I need to know how to do it for certain purposes.

[Ray Rozema]

Great background and exellent detail for a species that does not sit still. good pose . Beautiful perch. I would favor a little less space on the left. There is a slight white halo around the lower mandible. Agrre remove the branch behind the head.


TFS

[Jim Coda]

The bird and the BG are very nice. However, the three little branches behind the bird are distracting to me. If you were to remove them then I'd also suggest cropping to improve location of the bird.

Jim Coda
http://jimcoda.wordpress.com