My Friend, the Butcher

[Glennie Passier]

When every body else fly the coop, I can rely on a Butcher Bird to land on my perch. Winter is, at last, approaching and the sun already is quite low in the sky. This image was taken around 11.00 am. With the days getting shorter it will be nice to get a little softer light for a bit longer.

In ACR - Exposure to the right, Highlights to the left and blacks to the right, quite a lot. No vibrance or clarity. In the HSL panel, oranges to the left.
In PSCS6 - HSL layer on BG. HSL layer on bird to remove magenta cast. Curves adjustment layer over whole image. A little dodge and burn. Cropped for composition. Cloned out extra catch light. NR on BG (maybe not necessary) and smart sharpened for posting.

Canon 5D2
Sigma 150-600 @289mm
f5.6 (I have some at f8 and found the BG was just too in focus.
1/1000
ISO 500
Tripod

C&C Always welcomed and appreciated!

[Michael Thompson]

Really cool bird, and nice perch! I have never seen one, nice job getting close. Looks like it could use more DOF, but like you said, don't want the background too in focus, its hard to get everything perfect :) nice pic ~ MT

[Diane Miller]

Veeery nice!! Wonderful clarity and detail in the face and eye!! Very pleasing pose and lovely BG, and glad to see you got it with a vertical frame. You get so many more pixels on the subject that way.

Small nit: I'd change the color of the yellow area at the bottom. I like the softer, lower contrast look compared to the crop illustration, but not sure I would have increased exposure -- it looks a little thin now. Blacks to the right is not something I would ever do. Shadows, yes, but use Blacks to the left as needed to pin the very darkest tones to the left side of the histogram, or as close to it as the subject matter demands.

[Adhika Lie]

Very nice pose, Glennie! Congrats on the more minimal cropping compared to the previous miner. The perch is beautiful. What about composite between the f/5.6 and the f/8 shot to get the bird's tail sharper? I agree with Diane on the black slider. I think it makes the picture not as punchy. The blacks, to me, is like the bass in a choir that gives foundation to the whole piece. A picture only needs very little black pixels but I feel like there should be a few (adjusted for taste) pixels in that part of the histogram.

[Warren Spreng]

Nice one Glennie! No other input from what has been mentioned. I do love the head position.