Female Red Winged Black Bird Nest building

[Tom Redd]

Dave Leroy's beautiful post of the male Red Winged Black Bird, inspired me to post a shot that I got this week. He got the male, I got the female - just probably a couple thousand miles apart. The reed coming up from behind the head is distracting but this is what I saw.

D3s
300/2.8 with 2x TC
1/1600 sec
f/7.1
ISO 800
0.33 ev
Handheld

Sharpened, cropped from horizontal to vertical

[arash_hazeghi]

I like the pose and the environment plus the small weed. I would move the bird slightly upper in the frame.

[Gary Esman]

Hi Tom, great shot the weed adds a lot to this image. Do agree on taking a bit off the top. Nice pose, HA and light. TFS

Gary.

[Tom Redd]

Thanks Arash and Marc, here it is tighter.

[Gary Esman]

repost looks great to me.

Gary.

[Dave Leroy]

Hi Tom,

Lovely shot and pose. i really like the nesting material.
I am really drawn to habitat type shots but the comment about moving bird higher does make sense if the idea is to get bird more to viewers eye level.

Although both are very nice and I would take either.

Good for you and well done.
Dave

[arash_hazeghi]

repost is great Tom

[Dumay de Boulle]

repost is better...Subject is larger and the comp better. Nice one Tom

[Mitch Carucci]

Like the image!

We have a large number of Red Wing BBs this year! They seem to be doing particularly well here (New York - Long Island). Since you mentioned it, I am curious about the original horizontal crop.

[Don Lacy]

Nice one Tom the nesting material make the image.

[gail bisson]

Lovely details. Good environmental shot.Repost is very nice.
Gail

[Tom Redd]

Thank you everyone.

Mitch, you asked about the original, here is a horizontal cropped version. I thought the BG was too busy unless it was vertical. I also thought the vertical was better suited since the subject includes the cat tail perch.

[noelle zaleski]

The nesting material really makes this image! I prefer the vertical for the same reasons as you.

Well done :S3:

[Mitch Carucci]

Thank you everyone.

Mitch, you asked about the original, here is a horizontal cropped version. I thought the BG was too busy unless it was vertical. I also thought the vertical was better suited since the subject includes the cat tail perch.

Tom,

The vertical is probably the stronger image, but the horizontal also has appeal. I took your suggestion and removed the reed behind the bird, and cropped slightly. No one version is the only "right" one. As AA used to say, the negative is like a musical score, and the print the performance.

Thanks for sharing your image.

M.C.

[Tom Redd]

Mitch, I like the repost, The reed removal really helped. Looks like you might have increased the saturation a bit. Looks good! Thank you!

[Mitch Carucci]

Tom,

I darkened the high tones on the background, and increased the saturation a bit. I also used detail 2 on the Red Wing to increase internal contrast a bit.

Mitch

[Tom Redd]

Thanks Mitch!