Red-Winged Blackbird

[Ed Vatza]

Canon 30D; 400mm f/5.6L lens; tripod-mounted

1/400 sec at f/5.6; ISO 200; +2/3 EV

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Ed !!! With that much green back there hot sure it needed the plus compensation. It tends to open up the meter on its own. The perch is blown out.

Soft light is the key for these birds. Still need more detail in the black but any more exposure is out. Slight more of a head turn would have been good and the eye area appears a little soft !!! Do like the pose and beautiful green bg !!! Also like the placement within frame leaving extra room to the right !!!

[Doug Brown]

Al makes some excellent points about exposure Ed. Your critical focus is not on the eye; the wing on the left and the tail both seem sharp by comparison. You may be able to get the head sharp with another round of USM. Thanks for posting.

[Ed Vatza]

PLEASE NOTE: I replaced the image with halos with another edit.

Thanks Al. Thanks Doug. I appreciate the feedback. I had drifted away from birds a bit while focusing on macro and flowers. I've got to get back in the groove so to speak. I really thought I was focused in on the eye. I did some additional sharpening but not sure I made it better. Thoughts?

I should add that I was aware of the overexposed reed. That is why I tried to eliminate much of it. Probably should have tried for all of it! :)

[Dave Phillips]

Hi ED....the repost looks some better indeed and sure the mods appreciate your effort.
I was off trying a rework also to see if I could pull any detail out of the blocked blacks.
Also, be aware of sharpening halos surrounding the bird perimeter

used s/h too and also worked the eye a bit......I'm relaxing and playing, hope you don't mind

[Ed Vatza]

OUCH! I swear those halos were not there when I did the edit. I will go back and check right now!

Halos are like an optical illusion for me. I see them, then they disappear, then I see them again, then they disappear again. Very frustrating for me.

[Doug Brown]

I think the repost is OK, but it now looks like an OOF head that's been oversharpened. :( Every now and then, you can PP an image like this and salvage a keeper. Unfortunately, it doesn't always work out that way. It's photos like this one that make me want to go out and take more photos!

[Ed Vatza]

I think the repost is OK, but it now looks like an OOF head that's been oversharpened. :( Every now and then, you can PP an image like this and salvage a keeper. Unfortunately, it doesn't always work out that way. It's photos like this one that make me want to go out and take more photos!

Thanks Doug. I can't go out now. Its dark! :D But I will get there again in the next couple of days. Actually, I have other images from the same "shoot" and I will take a closer look at them.

Also, while you were writing, I did switch out the oversharpened image for another.Not sure its much better but it is different!