Delicate

[Richard Unsworth]

I am surrounded by Stonechats daily but most are on posts and wire.
I was driving through a nearby meadow today and was able to get this one from the open window.
Almost full frame, I really like the flowers span across the frame and those little pods are great!

NR and Sharpening using layers in CS6, Dropped max white point to 245 as a little bright in full sun from behind me.

7D 100-400@400 ISO 400 F5.6 /1250 HH ME

[Marina Scarr]

Love what you were going for here. The perch and BG are super and you have a great pose. Everything works well together. I would reduce the brightness just a tad. I did a multiply layer at 15% opacity and it looked pretty good. Cropped a little bit from the left and bottom to take the bird out of the middle and I feel it improved an already extremely pleasing image.

[jack williamson]

I really like this and I would have to agree completely with the advice by Marina. Beautiful shot Richard.

[PhilCook]

Wonderful setting and nice HA as well......one of the nicer " small in the frame " shots I've seen for a while, wonder if the brightness on the birds blacks could be toned back a little

[Shawn Zierman]

Love the loose composition, and great background control despite the distance to subject.
This one is definitely worthy of a repost with Marina's suggestions applied....or leave it just
as is, either way, I thouroughly enjoy it.

[Richard Unsworth]

Well some nice comments and suggestions there, thanks

OK so following Marina's suggestion , recropped and 14 % opacity multiply layer, didnt want to darken the image too much. Added a little canvas at the top to balance.

[vishaljadhav]

I like the way the image is made, the second one is superb
its very unique way of composing very nice.

[Daniel Cadieux]

The OP was a great starting point, the repost shines brighter. As a finishing touch you should eliminate the OOF flower in lower left corner's edge and the OOF bits peeking in at bottom edge.

[Doug Brown]

Marina's suggested changes really enhanced an already nice frame. I would also vote for Daniel's idea of removing several of the OOF flowers.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Very nice indeed Rich, I like the repost, and I have learned something from this image, I had always wondered what the multiply layer was for

[Richard Unsworth]

Hi
Finally got round to acting on Daniels suggestion to finish, removed small elements as suggested.
Been out trying to get more like this lol they are all on posts!