Female Grace's Warbler

[Stan Cunningham]

Hard to get these guys out of a high canopy but was lucky one day.
Canon 7D, 500 F4, 5.6 at 1/250, fill flash, ISO 500, some tweaks in Nik to bring out contrast.
Comments always appreciated.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Very nice find, and good for it to come down for you. Nice backgorund colour. I like the pose overall but do wish for a slightly better head angle. I'm torn on the comp as I know you wanted to keep the leaves back there but I find the warbler to far left. She is also oversharpened as posted. Did she come down via water drip or audio?

[Stan Cunningham]

Water Daniel. You're right on the comp as I wanted the green leaves, I'm not crazy about the brown and green can be rare in AZ, need to work more on my perch selection and set ups.
Be curious to see what others say on the composition with respect to the bird. I actually like the head angle, but we all have different tastes. Thanks for you comments as usual.

[Jack Breakfast]

I agree with Daniel RE the oversharpening, but otherwise I adore this. I especially love the green leaves and the way they look...gorgeous background, and a beautiful bird. What in the world does it mean when a bird "comes down via water drip?"...I'm dying to know...even if you did entice this bird downward with some sort of watergun, I still commend you on an excellent shot in my books...

[Don Nelson]

I also agree with Daniel about the oversharpening -- its pretty obvious when you look at the halo around the bill. Head detail is crunchy.
Head angle is acceptable to me even with the slight rotation-- these warblers don't sit still. Too bad it didn't rotate the tail just a bit towards you.
Nice one.

[Stan Cunningham]

I know what you guys are saying but I've attached the original with no sharpening. I ran some luminance NR on the processed version to remove some of the artifacts and the NR on my action for processing put it over into too sharpened. But her head is chunky because her feathers are fluffed, alert as she came down to the water.
Jack, thanks for the nice comments. This really wasn't a water drip but a water hole. A water drip is a temporary setup where water drips into a small basin that often attracts birds to the water and you can place some key perches around it. Alan Murphy has an excellent description of a couple on his CD on attracting songbirds; I've found several valuable tips in there. Too bad I can't like the guy because he takes bird pictures so much better than I, but I recommend his CD. (sorry my country boy sarcasm leaked out)113002

[gail bisson]

Hi Stan,
Good comments so far. I have never even heard of this warbler until now so I thank you for introducing me to a new bird.
If this is full frame then I would leave the comp as is but if you have wiggle room I would place the bird more to the right in the frame,
Gail

[Stan Cunningham]

Its FF, and I'm kind of hung up on the leaves but agree with you Gail.

[Davidwilliams]

Have to say I find it difficult to make shots work from this angle, and it does appear a tad over sharpened, nevertheless a good capture of a very attractive bird

[Don Nelson]

left is a piece out of your 800x533 "original" jpg, and a similar crop out of your 1024x680.
Note the sharpening artifacts surrounding the bill on the right side.
The feathers on the head are similarly oversharpening, which results in crunchiness. (not a result of feathers being held erect on the head by the bird). I think you've got a nice image made that is suffering from processing. If it were mine, I'd start again from the raw
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