Tree Sparrow

[William Dickson]

Canon 1DX
f/4 500mm with 1.4
f/6.3
1/1000
ISO 2000

The Tree Sparrow is one of our less common sparrows, and quite rare in some parts of Scotland. I liked the pose this guy gave me.

Will

[Isaac Grant]

He does not look happy. I like the head on pose and the perch. Background is nice as well. I see you had a fairly high ISO so I wonder if the shot would benefit from raising the exposure a bit and adding a bit of contrast. Not sure if it is just my eyes but shots not taken in full morning or evening sun always seem on the flat side to me. My tendency is to try and compensate a bit for that and add back some extra color.
Raised the brightness +8
Contrast +8
Highlight and shadow adjustment to bring the white cheeks back down
Selected bird and branch and ran detail extractor at 25%
Inversed selection and raised midtones on background +3 and saturation +12
NR on bird at about 10%, NR on background based on my setting for ISO 800
Smart Sharpened at .2 and 63%

I am probably a little over sharpened but it is so hard to work on these tiny files and that is an easy fix for you later. More did this to see how it would look with some added exposure and color and contrast, plus NR to background to set off the bird and the perch. Here is what I did. Let me know what you think

[David Salem]

I normally don't like head on poses much but this one is an exception. Both eyes clearly seen and that grumpy bird look is perfect. Nice details, perch and BG and I do like Isaacs repost. That bit of exposure and saturation really helps. Well done

[Lorant Voros]

And in my case I love head on images. This is very nice, especially the repost. Evenly lit, full detail, well exposed and so on. A smaller perch would make it even better. TFS.

[William Dickson]

Thanks guys, much appreciated. Hi Issac thanks for that, it sure is better., and makes the bird 'pop' more. I will rework the file, but I think a little less on the bird, as, for me the original shows the true feather colour. Thanks again for taking the time to do this mate.

Will

[Jonathan Ashton]

l like it just as it is, I think the extra colour is pleasant and eye catching but I suspect the first image is very close to reality.

[keith mitchell]

Will I go along with Jon on your OP I think it as got all the natural colours,would not change a thing.

Keith.