Australian Magpie

[Glenn Pure]

This is a male photographed on a chilly afternoon - hence he is fluffed up to stay warm. The background is OOF grass. I liked the warm late afternoon light and the sheen on the black feathers. These birds can get quite tame, especially in urban areas where some people will feed them. It can be a good strategy as the birds may get very aggressive during nesting season and attack people, sometimes drawing blood. These birds are smart enough not to 'bite the hand that feeds it'.

Technical: Canon 80D with EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM (Mark I) at 400mm handheld. Manual exposure 1/2000 sec, f8, ISO 1600. Processed in Canon DPP 4 (digital lens optimiser @ 50, sharpness = 3, crop, lighting adjustments, default NR) then exported 16 bit TIFF to Photoshop Elements with Neat Image NR plugin. Very light NR applied to birds in focus and stronger NR to background. Selective lighting adjustments to birds to bring out detail in whites and blacks. Sharpened in PSE (Sharpness tool) after final size reduction.

[gail bisson]

Perfect HA and I too, love the sheen.Love the eye.
Great light and IQ is excellent with good DOF. Exposure spot on.
I would be tempted to smooth out/soften the edge of the prominent OOF grass above the beak and the diagonal OOF grass behind the neck and loosen the comp slightly.
Gail

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Glenn, great pose here, and I like the feather detail you have captured. The light looks good, and nice that you have a clean BG. Your comp works well too.

[Glenn Pure]

Thanks Gail and Stu. I have done a little more work on it. Gail, I haven't changed the comp mainly because I didn't want to bring any more of the bird in as I thought the extra looked odd, was dark and oof. Adding more to the top and left would imbalance the comp. So I'm stuck with this one but I'm fairly happy with it. I have done some work on the bright grass stems but also played with the lighting on the bird a little more to bring out detail in the very bright and very dark parts. Hope this is an improvement.