Peacock portrait

[Mike Poole]

Thought I'd have a crack at this months theme, so here's a bird that whilst not originally from Britain, this, and many others live wild and free now.

This peacock lives at a local lake to me and can be approached closely at the right time. I have other frames with a closer horizontal crop, but thought I'd go for a more unusual upright frame to show off the long neck for something a bit different.

Canon 5d3
500mm f4 is
ISO 800, 1/1250th at f4

Small crop for comp

[Satish Ranadive]

Superb portrait, Mike.
Absolutely superb colors, details and nice BG. I like the composition.
Wish you could have used smaller aperture to get crown feathers in focus.

Regards,
Satish.

[Binu John]

Love the colors and details in this beautiful portrait! Excellent BG and composition. A bit more DOF would've been better, but it's only a minor nit. Excellent work, Mike!

[Daniel Cadieux]

I too would have liked more dof for the head plumes but I suspect you would have needed to stop down a lot to get them sharp as they seem far enough from the plane of focus. The comp is excellent, I love that you went for a vertical here...way to go! Very nice blues, and the BG sets off the subject very nicely.

[Robert Kimbrell]

Really Attractive image Mike, Brilliant colors and very sharp. Comp is pleasing. I agree more DOF improve the image.

[Mike Poole]

Thanks for looking and commenting everyone. I agree that it would have been nice to have the crown sharp as well. The issue though was not so much a lack of DoF but there was a strong wind blowing which meant the feathers were blown back and away from the plane of focus. I can get another shot on a better day, but this just struck me as a shot for this months theme when I saw how he was posing.

Mike