Stonechat

[Stu Bowie]

I am fortunate to have a nature reserve close to my house, and have quite a variety of birds to be able to capture against some lovely BG's. This was taken earlier in the year.

Canon 50D
100-400 @ 400mm
1/1000
F/6.3
ISO 400

Exp Comp +0.67
Hand held from the car.

[Chris Kotze]

Super comp, image is nice sharp and I like the green summer background colours.

[Mital Patel]

beautiful image Stu.

The light and expo is just spot on to me. Perch any one could have wished for just perfect. (can be straighten as vert as an option).

I may give hand to OOF brown curvy stick touching the leg from LRC as arc ..

[Daniel Cadieux]

Nice one Stuart! Beautiful bird albeit a little scruffy looking. I like the perch not being perfectly vertical, but agree with Mital that you could blend the faint OOF stem in LRC. Nice comp.

[Randy Stout]

Stuart:

Nice to have a good spot near to home. I have one also, nice to know you can pop over for a bit, even when you don't have time for an expedition!

Good points above. I personally would try a version cropped up from the bottom, between the two leaf clusters, and a small crop on the left to keep it from getting too square . His head turn and eye contact is such that you don't need a lot of space on the left.

Just an optional crop to try.

Cheers

Randy

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Stuart, excellent...good comp., nice blacks, sharpness and sweet BG.

[Ishmeet Sahni]

A beauty Stuart. I think the scruffiness adds to the image. The OOF stem works for me.

[Stu Bowie]

Thanks a stack for the varied feedback guys. Its always good to see how others vary with their thoughts.

[Alan Murphy]

Love the perch, BG and pose. Well done.

[Bob Pelkey]

Great control in keeping the blacks true to what you saw. The placement of the bird in the frame is very pleasing.

[Sidharth Kodikal]

Lovely image, Stu. Love the bg, the perch, the perfect head turn and the super cute bird. Very nice.

[denise ippolito]

Stuart, Beautiful background, nice comp and sharp bird :S3: Nicely done.

[Stu Bowie]

Thanks a stack for the feedback everyone. Always appreciated.