Stately Lady...

[David Roach]

EOS R EF 400 DO 2xtcII f8 1/800 ISO1250
Female Red Wing Blackbird.

[Jonathan Ashton]

It's a nice shot, the image lacks a little definition, I would suggest exchanging the 2xTC II for the 2xTC III, I think you will find you get noticeably better results. Also whenever possible lower the aperture, even half a stop helps, but if the subject is bang in centre of the frame lowering the aperture is less important.

[John Mack]

Nice pose on the female. Wish the branch wasn't in front of the tail. Great background.

[Alex Becker]

I like the pose and background. I like the perch but wish it was just a bit cleaner. A bit of a head turn would have helped as well. Great catchlight. TFS

[Isaac Grant]

First Eos R post. Details on the bird look really nice. I am impressed with the soft feather details! As mentioned the perch is a bit busy and it looks like critical focus was on the shoulder and not the eye. Always try and aim for a head turn towards the viewer, even a few degrees makes the image much more engaging. The only time it works when the head is facing away from us if it tells a story. Is the bird looking at the sunset, it's mate, something that tells a story.

[Arthur Morris]

Ditto everything above especially Isaac. The fine feather detail (FFD) looks more than fine to me. I think that this bird is just out of the nest as an adult female would not show the rich rufous coloring.

with love, artie

ps: a square crop and some perch clean-up work left this one looking a lot neater. I used the following: Patch Tool, Content Aware Fill, Clone Stamp Tool, and Gaussian Blur (for background smoothing with an Inverse Layer mask).