Funny pose from a nice male this past spring migration. Let me know if this image is soft whatsoever, because when I view it on my work computer and on flickr it looks perfect; however, my last post here looked very different on some computers than it should.
Boston, Massachusetts - May 7, 2012
Canon EOS 7D
Canon EF 100-400 mm F/4.5-5.6 L IS
1/400
f/6.3
ISO 800
Manual White Balance
Overcast conditions in the evening
The bird's face (mostly eyes) and feet look real sharp to me. The face is what counts and sometimes hard to get when they are looking at you. I like the pose and the background except for the dark branch on the lower left - I probably would eliminate it. I don't know this bird but it looks like you have a nice one.
Yes, the eyes and the feet look sharp. DOF a bit shallow and bird a bit large in the frame. Nice head-on pose...unique. Would have liked to see some details in the black throat. Well done getting so close...not an easy task.
Agree with the two above posts, sharp where it counts, a bit more head turn would be nicer..but, birds are birds after all. It's needing a bit more dof, but getting good dof in bird shots in low light is something I struggle with often. It's so often a toss up between shallow dof from front to back of bird or deeper dof and low shutter speeds and risking blur. Most of my birding is done for small bush birds and low light/shade is a big problem to contend with.
Sharpness is good in the eyes, and I like that you got catchlights in both of them. The blacks are pretty blocked though, and the BG is somewhat distracting.