Tree Swallow

[Joe Brown]

Canon 1D MKIV, 300mm 2.8, 1.4 TC 580 Flash, better beamer.
f/5.6, 1/300, ISO 400

adjusted exposure +60, fill light 25, recovery 9, sharpened and removed noise in acr.
cropped, removed flash catch light and burned the natural catch light to make it standout.

Joe

http://www.joebrownphotography.net/images/TSwallow.jpg

[Gary Thompson]

Hi Joe, you captured a nice swallow here. You have a nice pose and a good HA in this shot. I think it could be improved by reducing the brightness a bit and crop it differently. You usually want to have more space in the direction that the bird is looking or flying. I did a quick redo of your image, I hope you don't mind. I can take it down if you want. I added a little canvas to the right side to give the bird more room in the direction it was looking, and re-cropped it: then lowered the brightness a little bit. You have a lot of details in the white that I think could be brought out better this way. Your image doesn't show overexposed, but a little darker in the whites will make a difference here. I also worked on the eye/catchlight. Let me know if you want me to take it out. It's just a suggestion.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3569/5738150740_2a5e8d8057_b.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/garythompson/5738150740/)


Gary

[Joe Brown]

Thanks Gary for the comments and the image redo.
To me it looks like the bird is looking more toward me then out of the image to the right. That is why I cropped it as I did. I agree and generally follow the composition conventions that you mention. I agree that your version works and would likely be more readily accepted.
Also the bird looks better a little darker as per your version. I was attempting to lighten the bg and can see now that I did this at the expense of the main subject the bird.

This exchange demonstrates the value of the ETL form which gives you an opportunity to get feedback from others.

Joe

[Bill Dix]

Nice looking Swallow. I agree with Joe about some space on the right, and like his repost for that reason. But I personally like the whites to look white (not that I always achieve it), and in the repost they look too dark to me, and a bit bluish (I'm getting 189.207.217 in the brightest spot on the breast in the repost; 238.242.249 in the OP. I think the OP looks better in that regard; or maybe somewhere in between (somewhere around 235.235.235 might be a target. In any event, a very nice image. (You can see that I'm enjoying playing with the free ColorPic download.):S3: