Red Wattlebird

Common bird here in the bush and gardens, with the most outrageous vocals and very territorial. A clever bird compared to many others and as a consequence can be very hard to get a decent shot of, always very wary and never alone, always a lookout posted nearby. Found this one eating the Lerps on the Gum leaves { Lerps = the little white dots on the leaves }

Image is a bit soft, more sharpening made it too grainy for my liking, but liked his eye contact among the Gum foliage, taken a few days ago near home

Canon 7d + 500 f4.......... f5, 1/3200, ISO 500, centre weighted average, manual exposure, no flash, hand held.....largish crop, selective sharpen on bird and selective noise reduction

nice bird, the head looks a bit soft and turned away from us. overall the perch and BG are too busy and distract from the bird, tail is also obscured. It is best to do a setup in these conditions, checkout Alan Murphy's ebook. It has valuable tips.adde

oops, just posted up the wrong image, tried to alter it but couldn't, so posting it now, this one has the head a bit more sharpened......the head/eye looks like it's looking directly at me, excellent HA imo

If you want to edit an attachment after uploading you need to click on "manage attachment" delete the old one and upload again.



To my eyes the head is slightly turned away from us and that was the first thing I noticed, look at the position of the catch-light, but I maybe too tired ;)

also checkout Artie's excellent article about HA fine points.


good luck

Excellent image, Phil.
It is refreshing to see a bird perching in its true habitat and not fully exposed.
It is very natural.
Warbler season is coming up here pretty soon and this is the way you see those birds as well, almost always.
The second image looks better.

Very nice, I really enjoy environmental shots and this is a good one. Agree the second image is sharper and the better of the two.

The head appears to be sharp, agree that the perch is a bit distracting. Nice looking bird though.

Very interesting bird. Agree the scene is busy. I'd definitely evict the leaf above the bird's head.

Great image of this bird in its environment. Beautiful colors and physical features.

I like it , the HA is ok the eye does apper to look at u
THe wattle is also nicely seen

Phil nice contact you have already picked out some of the problems but you have a nice eye contact even without a big head turn

I like the environment in this one. Def. prefer the repost. What a cool looking bird!