Baby Blue....

[Geoff Newhouse]

This is a young Mountain Bluebird all fluffed up.

This was shot handheld in available light. Canon 7D2, Canon 600 f/4 IS II + 2xTC III at 1200mm, f/8, 1/800, ISO 1000.

[Randy Stout]

Geoff:

Well done hand holding that much focal length/weight. Nice detail and colors.

Not my favorite perch, but it does show the feet very well.

A bit snug i the frame, perhaps because of the desire to minimize the perch. I might play around with a more horizontal crop to give him a bit more room.

Cheers

Randy

[Alan Murphy]

Love the detail. Not crazy about the size in the frame or the perch. The eye lacks life for me.

[Daniel Cadieux]

The main issues are the tight crop and the perch, but I love the nice details you got here and that fluffed out chest/neck.

[William Dickson]

Lovely details for focal length Geoff a looser crop would show the bird even better.

[keith mitchell]

The plus side of the tight crop it does show some superb feather detail that look so right, I am fine with the eye it looks very natural to me, amazed that you can do this with that gear and hand held.

Keith.

[Joseph Przybyla]

Lovely color, excellent feather detail. I echo Alan's comment regarding the eye looking lifeless, maybe brightning the faint catch light might help. Thank you for sharing.

[adrian dancy]

The techs look good and this is a sweet bird. It is a pity the eye was not a bit more open. I have to say the detail is stunning but I would prefer a loser crop. Nice work Geoff.

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

All critique valide IMO.
Nice detail though and you can probably present a looser crop too.
Thanks for sharing

[Geoff Newhouse]

Thanks everyone for the comments and critiques. I will revise the crop and play with some options and post back here after. I will also see if I can do anything about the eye. I may even have a better frame saved in LR with better catchlight so I will check on that also.

Cheers
Geoff