Zebra Grass Finch

[John Cooper]

The male Zebra Finch was attracted to this head of millet-seed.

EOS 7D, EF100-400 @ 330mm, ISO 200, 1/800 sec F7.1, early morning light, Hide, Tripod with gimbal head.

[Nick Palmieri]

Loving all these cool birds. Nice exposure, great perch and BG. If it were mine I might lose a bit off the bottom. Nice image!

[Arthur Morris]

A sweet-looking and colorful bird. Perhaps a bit over-sharpened on the bird and a tad over-saturated. I am struggling with the image design/crop.... Can you please post the original full frame image? IQ looks pretty good.

[Greg Oakley]

Lovely image John - all looks good to me, except wish for a very slight head turn up towards the camera - cracking shot though, well done!
Cheers, Greg

[Karl Egressy]

Great looking bird, nice pose, perch and beauty background, John. Excellent detail and DOF.

[John Cooper]

Hi Artie - this is the full frame image with no vibrance or saturation applied. The original post had 30% vibrance applied. (No saturation).
RAW image converted in ACR with only minor adjustment to exposure.

[Raymond Lee]

Nice colour, details, and lighting! I would chop off the bottom a bit. Thanks for posting the original, I was going to say something about the perch where it ends at the top.

[christopher galeski]

nice image John,nice BG and perch,loverly colors.thanks.

[PhilCook]

I've still not got a shot I'm happy with of these little birds, I've pursued them for many miles through the dry inland and very hard to get close to. Very nice shot, nice and clear with plenty of detail and color, not greatly taken with the seed head perch I admit, hanging down as it is does look a bit staged, better if it were upright as natural I think

[John Cooper]

I've still not got a shot I'm happy with of these little birds, I've pursued them for many miles through the dry inland and very hard to get close to. Very nice shot, nice and clear with plenty of detail and color, not greatly taken with the seed head perch I admit, hanging down as it is does look a bit staged, better if it were upright as natural I think

Yes I agree Phil about the seed-head and I think thats waht Artie was referring to. Could be a very droopy millet stalk :)

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks John for the original. I actually like the seed head perch a lot. I do think that your crop was the problem :). I love the drawn bow composition in the ORIG. So I simply moved the bird in the frame using APTATS II techniques and then cleaned up with the Patch Tool and a strong surface blur on a layer (and then painted out the bird and the stalk).

[Jim Crosswell]

I like the perch, colourful bird and BG. Nice image John.

[John Cooper]

Thanks John for the original. I actually like the seed head perch a lot. I do think that your crop was the problem :). I love the drawn bow composition in the ORIG. So I simply moved the bird in the frame using APTATS II techniques and then cleaned up with the Patch Tool and a strong surface blur on a layer (and then painted out the bird and the stalk).

Many thanks Artie - yes the subject does look better moved from the center. But the finch appears a tad small to me in the full frame capture.

[Arthur Morris]

YAW. There is nothing inherently wrong about small in the frame . Your original post, where you wanted the bird bigger, just did not work for me compositionally--it was very boxy.

[David Salem]

Nice job as always on these little guys. Sharp and exposed well. Like the millet spray he is hanging on and the original comp looks good to me. Very well done. P. S. your saturation and contrast levels looks better lately.

[Frank Schauf]

Beautiful and colorful image. Sharp and well composed.

[John Cooper]

Nice job as always on these little guys. Sharp and exposed well. Like the millet spray he is hanging on and the original comp looks good to me. Very well done. P. S. your saturation and contrast levels looks better lately.

Thanks for the comments David - yes I've ceased to apply my 'Linear contrast' to most of my images now, and I think that's an improvement.

[Satish Ranadive]

John:
Beautiful and colorful finch with nice details and BG,you have captured .Very interesting perch.I like the recomposed re post by Arthur Morris.

Regards,
Satish.