Yellow hammer.

[keith mitchell]

Nikon D4
Nikon 300mm 2.8
1/640@F8
ISO1000.


Small branch removed from under the birds breast,levels and curves.Thanks for taking a look.

[David Cowling]

Lovely capture of this pretty little bird Keith. Colours, exposure and sharpness spot on. Lovely diffused BG. I only wish that the twig had terminated around about the birds beak as my eye keeps following it out of the picture, not much you could have done about that though. Nice to see an image of this little bird.

[Bill Nuttall]

attractive bird Keith, colours look good - I've have not seen one for years

the pruned twigs are a bit twiggy and it is a pity you need them in the image to give you space to the left, (can you crop differently?)

Head is sharpe and I am surprised that at f8 with the 300mm f2.8 it just did not give you a bit more DOF on the coverts and tail

but a beautiful little bird

Best

[William Dickson]

Very nice Keith. Great looking pose with lovely colour and feather detail. The greens in the BG blend so well with the bird. I like the perch.

Will

[Geoffrey Montagu]

Great capture, Keith. Like the soft light on this beauty and beautiful BG. I might trim the stub aiming down, but fine as posted.

Geoffrey

[keith mitchell]

Thanks David,Will,Geoffrey,Bill.Couple of points raised did wonder about cropping out the V in the perch but decided the perch might look a bit plain without it,"Head is sharpe and I am surprised that at f8 with the 300mm f2.8 it just did not give you a bit more DOF on the coverts and tail"could this be due to me being close to the bird when I took the shot?
Keith.

[Bill Nuttall]

Thanks David,Will,Geoffrey,Bill.Couple of points raised did wonder about cropping out the V in the perch but decided the perch might look a bit plain without it,"Head is sharpe and I am surprised that at f8 with the 300mm f2.8 it just did not give you a bit more DOF on the coverts and tail"could this be due to me being close to the bird when I took the shot?
Keith.

Yep Keith - "too near" if you look at the DOF charts for various distances at f8 and all the fvalues it shows how much DOF you have in front and behind the subject and the nearer to the subject that you have the smaller the distance of DOF and also the ratio in front and behind can change a various distances.

That's one of the reasons, IMHO, to tune your lens or at least check your lens to make sure that it is not front or back focusing

(if you are aware of the above my apologises for stating it - "teaching my grandma to suck eggs")

but DOF is annoying especially when you are near and we are told to get as near as we can

agree about the bottom branch thing - sometimes when they are clearly "pruned" it looks less natural - I'd get rid of it and clone the join and tone down the other "cut" mark

[keith mitchell]

Thanks for this Bill it backs up my thoughts.

Keith.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Keith, lovely pose here, and I do like the yellows. The feather detail really shows up nicely, and I like the bits of moss on the perch. Sharp where it counts. Another vote for being too close, and stopping down would not have achieved much more DOF.

[keith mitchell]

Thank you Stu.