Female European Stonechat

[shane shacaluga]

Went for a walk with the dogs early morning and found loads of migrant passerines had spent the night in my area. This female stonechat was quite brave and let me get close enough for a decent shot

Nikon D7000
300f4 + 1.7x TC
1/1600
f8
ISO 800
Hand Held

There was a big bare space to the right so tried a vertical crop. Didnt realise the max height can only be 900 so had to resize after sharpening for height 1200

Cloned out a small leaf-tip at very bottom left.

Toned down and NR on background. Selective sharpening of the bird

C&C welcome

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Shane, I moved your thread from Wildlife to Avian.

cheers
Steve

[gail bisson]

I really like the perch and the lookback pose. Nice to see the toes and nails so well.
The hint of green in the BG is really nice as well.
The head is just out of the DOF and I would sharpen it a bit more.
I would also lower the brightness of the leaf the bird is perched on.
Gail

[shane shacaluga]

HI Steve, I was sure I had posted it in Avian but obviously i did not! Thanks for moving it

Gail, I have sharpened the head a bit more and toned down the bright leaf on the perch. I decided to clone out the two leaves intersecting the legs. I think it looks a bit better this way

Thanks a lot for your comments

[Bill Dix]

Very nice look-back pose. I'll second Gail's suggestions re. the bright leaf and a little more USM.

[Daniel Cadieux]

The repost looks much better. I love that there is a leaf cuaght in the birds perching grip. I do wish you had pointed your lens up a little more though to place the subject a tad lower in the frame.

[shane shacaluga]

Thanks Bill, i think our posts crossed paths

Daniel, thanks for your comments. Do you mean I should have lowered the camera to shoot the bird a bit from below?

I have more room at the top in the original frame just thought it would be empty space, if thats what you mean.

Again thanks

[Bill Dix]

Repost is a great improvement. Nicely done.

[Steve Kaluski]

Not a problem Shane.

If you adjust the HSL in LR or ACR and drop (minus) the Green in Saturation and in Luminance the leaves look better and have a tad more detail, however this is Global so you may wish to add this as an adjustment layer and use a mask. Subject looks better in the repost but perhaps drop the red/magenta just a fraction, WDYT? Dare I suggest a square crop based on the subject, perch & BKG?

[shane shacaluga]

Thanks Steve

Removed red/magenta from bird a bit and dropped saturation of greens on the leaves

By squarish crop do you mean something like this?

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Shane, not sure, the Avian guys are better equipped, and yes that was my original thought, however I do like having more vegetation at the foot.

This was my take, probably too cool?

[shane shacaluga]

Looks good! I think i made my subject too large in the frame with my last post and its affecting the IQ

Yours looks better although as you say, may be a tad cool

Thanks for your suggestions ;) I may rework from scratch as I have messed a bit too much with my image now haha

[shane shacaluga]

Started again from scratch as it was getting a bit messy with all the changes

I always get worried I will oversharpen but your last post was quite a bit sharper than my own posts

[gail bisson]

Hi Shane,
I like your last repost for IQ and color etc but prefer the comp in pane #4.
I love it when people repost to show the improvements.
Gail

[shane shacaluga]

Thanks for your comments Gail.

Its great to see how minor things pointed out by experienced photographers can make such a difference to an image.