Female Red-winged Blackbird on Cat-tail with Prey

[Richard Stern]

An image from a local marsh in June. D7000, 300 f4 AF-S, TCE17 II, hand-held, 1/2500, ISO800, f7.1, manual exposure, -1/3, Pattern metering, no flash. Levels, curves, selective sharpening and selective nr in LR4 and PSE9.

Thanks for looking, and comments.

Richard

[Miguel Palaviccini]

Richard,

Nicely captured! The grub in the mouth is great. The focus and sharpness are spot on for me.

Not much I would do with this one.

Miguel

[Randy Stout]

Richard:

Sharp, nicely exposed,food item,soft bg.

I might consider toning down the brightness of the cat-tail fuzz a bit.

Cheers

Randy

[Frank Schauf]

Great pose and setting you have here.

[Karl Egressy]

Nice details and the food item adds interest, Richard.
After having looked at the picture my first impression was;
-it would look much better as a vertical, especially if you had more of the perch.
- the cattail perch should go darker which could be easily done by selective linear burn.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Richard, great light and IQ in this, and love the detail around the head and meal in the beak. I feel your comp is fine as is, but agree toning down the cattail will work.

[Jeannean Ryman]

Very nice Richard. Agree about the cat-tail. Love the worm in the mouth and detail in the feathers. I like the comp as is, but think a vertical would work too if you had more of the cat-tail.

[Richard Stern]

Hi, and thanks for your comments and suggestions. I didn't have a whole lot more room at the bottom, but here's a repost anyway, incorporating them.

Richard

[arash_hazeghi]

nice pose, sharp details and soft BG. good exposure. I like the repost in terms of composition but would consider more room on the left

TFS

[Daniel Cadieux]

Perch, prey item, subject all look nice. Good details. IMO both versions feature the subject a tad too large in the frame.

[Satish Ranadive]

Magnificent image. Nice perch and background.Very nice colors, lights and details too.I like the prey in the beak.
Agree about loose crop.

Regards,
Satish.