Blue tit (Cyanistes caeruleus)

[Jonathan Ashton]

A shot from the back garden
Olympus E-M1X
Focal length in 35 mm film : 601.0mm
Exposure mode : Manual exposure
Exposure compensation : +1.7 EV
ISO Sensitivity : 640
Shutter : 1/400 sec
Aperture : F5

ACR/Topaz DNAI/PSCC

[David Roach]

Sweet, sweet perfection minus the OOF branch at tail. Love the framing, BG, perch and SH right where it needs to be. TFS

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Jon ..... a very nice pose of the tit . Nice perch
Color looking quite nice .. personally I might warm it up slightly .
Looking at the techs I think you might have lost some finer detail through the SS and lens combo . A bit more DOF would have also been nicer .... but this is just a minor thing IMHO .

Great to see you are busy in your garden and have some cool visitors .

Stay safe Jon , TFS Andreas

[kevin Hice]

Nice image I like how the little bit of frost adds to the image instead of the usual branch. Colors look good. I like how the bird is looking down .I would have bumped the Iso up for a faster SS. TFS

[Bill Dix]

Lovely bird, pose, perch (oof twig at tail could go). Maybe could use a sliver more room on the right?

[William Dickson]

In yer face Blue tit....Nice one Jon....People would buy a print like this.....Very attractive.

Will

[Paul Burdett]

Very nice Jonathan. Agree with the +ve comments. Yes to more dof. I would clone out the oof twigs on the left.

[Dorian Anderson]

Do you have more room around the bird, particularly below? Having him gaze into both short sides of the frame (right and down) is tough as is. Otherwise the picture is really nice. The viewer's focus goes straight to the sharp face, and the frosty perch is a nice surprise once we begin exploring the rest of the frame. Would love a bit more DOF across the bird, but that face sucks us in as is!

[Sidharth Kodikal]

Lovely details. Nicely framed by the appropriately sized, ice encrusted branches, but the bird is a tad large in the frame for me.
If not opposed to cloning, I'd definitely evict the OOF vegetation behind the bird - I think that'd be a nice improvement.
For garden setups, it's easier to plan ahead and select / prune your perches such that as much of the perch is parallel to the camera as possible.

I'd amp up the warmth and contrast a tad, but that's just personal preference.

[Steve Kaluski]

I like the colours as presented, but perhaps a touch of a curves Mid Tone, rather than Contrast Jon. It's a bit tight IMHO, maybe a slightly looser crop and more below to look into. Not wild about the branch at the rear of the Blue Tit, like the frost.

TFS
Steve

[Jonathan Ashton]

Thanks for the comments everyone, there was more space all round - but also lots of twigs, and OOF buds etc. I'll have to get a fresh perch. Colour temperature I thought was cold but it was indeed pretty cold - about 1 deg C. so I thought I reflected the conditions fairly truthfully.
I had to put the fan heater on in my hide several times, boy how we photographers have to suffer for our craft!
I did play around with curves and various means of contrast. The reason for big in the frame was I wanted you to concentrate on his head and not his OOF tail, but had I noticed the ISO had dropped I would have increased DOF.