Gambel's Quail

[JP Bruce]

Taken near Green Valley, AZ -elephant head
Canon 40D 300 f2.8 is with 2X tc, 1/1000 f5.6 ISO 200
Tripod in a blind
Comments welcome

[Harold Davis]

looks great, jp. i like how the plant and flowers in the bg frame out the bird. really nice.

[Arthur Morris]

Hi JP, You did well with the harsh light. The image would have been improved had you not clipped the big wellow blossom. "If an object is worth including in the frame, you need to include the whole thing with at least a small border."

[david cramer]

I find the plant distracting, maybe because of what Art mentioned about the crop. Otherwise it is a nice sharp shot!

[Dave Phillips]

I like the subtle green plant, but would crop off all the yellow blooms...then a wee bit more space in front of the quail.

This is a beautifully toned sharp image.....very nice IMO

[Fabs Forns]

Hi Bruce.
The harsh light is your main enemy here.
I did an inverse curve as suggested in the tutorial posted in the Edu Resources forum, then player with the plant, cropping the top and blurring it a bit as not to have it compete with the subject. Hope you like it!
If you have a RAW file, and you use ACR for conversion, you can add fill light and reduce contrast.

[Linda Robbins]

Beautiful subject, pose and setting, and you did a great job with the harsh light. I like the plant behind the bird...it adds nice color and habitat impact to the image, but agree with Artie that pointing the camera up just a tad to include all of the topmost blossom would have been an improvment.