Cedar Waxwing

[Geoffrey Montagu]

From last August. Liked this one with crest up. Also with the distinct mask on the CEDW, I think looking straight into the lens works. Any opinions welcome.

D700, Nikon 500mm + 1.4x tc, 1/250, f5.6, FF, ISO 800, Gitzo tripod, Wimberley Gimbal head.



Geoffrey

[Randy Stout]

Geoffrey:

The mask is very effective head on. Looks like a little bandit! I like the yellow on the perch working with the yellow tipped tail.

For my personal taste, the background is a bit bright for this fellow. Nice soft light on the bird.

Cheers

Randy

[Sidharth Kodikal]

Love this species and the head on look captured here is excellent. I quite like the bright BG here. In such exposure conditions, if you wanted to keep the BG darker, I find a fill flash to be a great tool.
Right edge, center, there are some darker spots which I would evict.
I'd crop a bit from the left where the perch forks off (it's pulls my eye away a bit). That would also center the bird, which is OK given the head-on look imho. Lovely exposure and details.
Seems like I missed them this year - didn't see a single one.

[Daniel Cadieux]

The head on look of this species is priceless! Nice and sharp on the face, good colours. Comp wise I agree with Sidharth. Bummer this individual does not have the red "wax" on the wings!

[Geoffrey Montagu]

Thank you Randy, Sidharth, and Daniel. Randy I'll try a bit darker on the BG, but I kind of like this level, which by the way is as shot. Sidharth I agree the fork is distracting, and not wanting to move the CEDW to the center, I used Content Aware in Cs6, cropped in a bit on left. I've also looked several times for the darker spots you mentioned to no avail. I know Daniel, it would have been the icing on the cake.

[Bill Dix]

Good one, Geoffrey. I'm not often a fan of straight-on head shots, but it works very nicely on this masked fellow. Repost is an improvement. The spots are right on the edge, to the right of the bird's wing.

[Geoffrey Montagu]

Thanks, Bill.




Geoffrey