Snow Bunting

[Ed Vatza]

Image made yesterday at Shark River Inlet area in Belmar, NJ using my Canon 30D and 400mm f/5.6L handheld. Conditions were very overcast. I tried to get down to the bird's level.

1/1000 sec at f/5.6; ISO 640; EC=+1/3; No Flash

[Lana Hays]

Ed
A very nice image....and simple. With the colors I really don't even notice the perch....it blends in nicely. I chased snow buntings a couple of times last year and never had the success that I wanted. I might select the bird and do another round of sharpening and crop from the top and right to give a little better composition. This one came out pretty good. Oh one little hint......they love cracked corn:):):)

[Robert Amoruso]

I like the perch and the birds position and head turn. You included the right amount of the perch on the bottom but I would crop off some to the right of the bird. Generally you want less room behind the bird then in front of it and just a bit more of the back will balance it out nicely. The top needs to come down a lot. Make the distance from the top of head to top of frame the same as the bottom of feet to bottom of frame.

Some additional post processing on the bird could open up the tonal range. A selection of the bird and a curves adjustment layer. The color of the background and perch really compliment the bird nicely.

Nice work Ed.

[Jim Poor]

I like the colors and the pose. I'd also like to see bit off the top and off the right.

[Ed Vatza]

Lana, Robert, Jim,

Thanks for the feedback. It seems to be unanimous that we need a bit more cropping to the top and right side. I see your point perfectly. I just run into a real mental conflict regarding how much cropping is too much cropping.

I tend to think in terms of print size. I have had some real nice 8" x 10" prints from a file as small as 1500 x 1200 pixels and nice 11" x 14" prints from 2000 x 1600 pixel files. And of course larger files are no sweat. So anyway when I have to crop, I often set an arbitrary limit in my head ("I'll crop to 2000 x 1600 but not beyond", for example) rather than letting the image dictate how much cropping is necessary. Hopefully that makes sense. And that is one of the reasons I suggested a place for "Before and After" tutorials in one of the other forums.

Again thanks. I truly appreciate the feedback. It has been great here so far. I'd love to see more feedback but what I am getting is excellent.

[Jim Neiger]

Hi Ed,

I like the bird, pose, and low angle. The others have covered all the nits and given you great advice. I agree about the crop.