Pine Grosbeak and berries

[gail bisson]

I was tickled pink to find these beautiful birds in a tree that I often check out when doing my "bird rounds".
I cloned out a branch with berries from LLC
Image taken from car HH
It was very windy so the branch was moving non-stop hence the high SS. I would have loved for the bird to move to a lower branch and get a better BG but he would not oblige.
1DX 600mm
ISO 1600 SS 1/2000 F 5.6
Comments and critiques appreciated and learned from with thanks,
Gail

[Grace Scalzo]

This is a sweet speicies to photograph...I don't recall seeing many pictures of them at all. I agree with your own comments about the background. Love how he's eating the berry and your IQ and processing are super as always.

[John Robinson]

Echo Graces comments. Looks good to me. Thougtht about the oof berries on the right but better left in on reflection.
Good stuff.
JohnR

[annmpacheco]

Glad there were berries left for you and the grosbeak. Tack sharp head that draws me right to the feeding behavior. Love the color of the bird and the reds in both fruit and branch. well done Gail.

[Arthur Morris]

I like the bird and the image. I would never think of losing the o-o-f berries on our right. The only thing that bugs me is the o-o-f berry behind the bird above its left foot... Back in five. a

[Arthur Morris]

Did lots. LMK if you are interested. a

[annmpacheco]

Did lots. LMK if you are interested. a

I really like the disappearing fruit and i like the lightened head. Overall, the repost heightens the feeding behavior and makes this image more interesting.

[keith mitchell]

Gail I think Arthurs removal of that berry just tops off what is a excellent image.

Keith.

[gail bisson]

Thanks everyone.
I did toy with the idea of removing the berry by the foot but was worried it would make the shot too clean and perfect. But now that I see Artie's repost I realize it looks better than the original.
Artie-I know how to remove the berry ( from your e-book!) but did you do anything else? Thanks for your help,
Gail

[Bill Dix]

Terrific feeding pose, with tack sharp head. The sharpness focuses our eye on the mandibles sinking into the juicy berry. Good comp, and I like the oof berries on the right. I do think Artie's removal of the one berry is an improvement.

[Karl Egressy]

Great image Gail, the repost is an improvement.
We had a flock of about 150 birds for a while a few years back, feeding on the rows of Crab Apple trees at the University.
Now the chapped down all those beautiful old trees and put an ugly building there.
No more birds of this species.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks everyone. I did toy with the idea of removing the berry by the foot but was worried it would make the shot too clean and perfect. But now that I see Artie's repost I realize it looks better than the original. Artie-I know how to remove the berry ( from your e-book!) but did you do anything else? Thanks for your help,
Gail

Thanks Gail. Glad that you liked. There are certainly lots of ways to remove the berry or berries. I simply used a warped Quick Mask refined by a Regular Layer Mask as detailed in APTATS I & II and in Digital Basics. I needed to pull down the Curve on the sky layer as it was too light originally. But I did lots more. As the bird's head was angled ever-so-slightly away from the soft light, I selected the face along with the section of the branch that was in the shadow (both with the Quick Selection Tool) and ran my NIK 50/50 recipe as detailed in Digital Basics. Amazingly, I did not need to reduce the opacity. Last was a small "original ratio crop" from the top and the left.

On my third look I might be seeing a small smudge above and below the branch in front of the bird's head. It might be from another o-o-f berry....a

[William Dickson]

What fantastic colours Gail. All been said above. Very well done

Will

[Jim Crosswell]

Excellent image Gail! I like the feeding pose, IQ, details and composition. Arthur's repost addressed my issue with the OOF berry.