These are such pretty birds. I miss them from my time on the east coast. You've captured his color nicely, but I've got a couple of suggestions. First, he's too
tight in the frame. He needs some breathing room. And he need to be moved down so that he's better centered in the frame. Second, the image is
really noisy and that comes from two places. First, shooting at f/9 really hurts you. What lens are you using? The 800/5.6? If yes, you should be at f/5.6 for
shots like this. Maybe you were trying to keep the branches in focus as well, but there are so many of them you're going uphill on that front anyway. Dropping
to f/5.6 would have put you at ISO 640 which would have really helped the noise. Second, cropping in so tight always makes noise worse, so loosening
the crop will help on that front as well.
Noise certainly looks better, and there are fewer distracting branches which is good. But he's squashed into that top-right quarter. I'd move him down and left.
Yes, the second image is much more pleasing to the eye. Still a bit tight, and tucked into a corner as Dorian mentions. Also the fine detail is not as it could. Perhaps still a large crop?
Cape May Warbler
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