Swallow at Spring Valley

[kevin Hice]

Took this at Spring Valley wildlife area in Ohio a few weeks back was hoping for warblers or one of my favorites Prothonotary. Plenty of birds but never could find a nesting cavity. Really pretty slow so I tried to make something happen and shot these Tree Swallows.
Processed with Dpp 4,Photoshop,Topaz noise. Comments and critiques appreciated.
Canon 1DX 111
500 f/4 L Is
700 mm
AV 5.6
1/1250
ISO 3200

[Wayne Niz]

Wow, great picture with very interesting pose, lovely colors, well done superb

[William Dickson]

I like it Kevin....the bird looks good with nice detail and colours.....That stretched wing looks fab...the only thing that draws my eye is too much OOF on the lower perch....If you have the canvas and the IQ holds I would change the crop and take out the lower part of the perch.

Will

[kevin Hice]

Here is a second crop.

[dankearl]

The OOF perch is just too prominent...too large, nice post but just not working for me...

[Arthur Morris]

I love, Leo, love the elegant pose. You might try a square or a boxy crop. The whole image looks too bright to me. And the stretched wing is a beauty.

with love, arite

[arash_hazeghi]

I am with Artie, pose is great but the image is a bit bright and the OOF part of the perch draws my eyes too, maybe a squarish crop can remedy. nice view of the wing!

TFS

[Kurt Bowman]

I also agree about trying a squarish crop on the one and toning down the brightness.

[gail bisson]

I am late to the party but agree with the OOF perch drawing the eye away and the brightness.
Nice pose,
Gail

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Kevin, love the capture, but as stated above, with the brightness the white appear quite hot, did you try any toning down/recovery just below of the blue of the head? DoF looks great to me, the heads sharp and wing softness tails off nicely IMHO. Addressing the brightness, will also address the BKG, albeit a slight tweak of some channel Luminance/RGB Curves adds a bit more separation. The perch is too dominating so with such a clean backdrop I'd go landscape in format.

Was the bird enticed to the perch as theres some white spec peppering the bark, suet????

TFS
Steve

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Kevin ... i do really like the pose of the subject .
Personally I might go along Steve´s line in terms of color and tone ....

Almost where I would go .... with some slight variation here and there in the color and tones .

TFS Andreas

[Brian Sump]

Kevin, I love the dropped wing and great stare by the subject. Bkg gives you a sweet canvas to work with and plenty of detail as well.

Many of my thoughts were well addressed in Steve's rp. I like the crop better and felt in the og post that it was a little bright and thin in terms of contrast - thought I'd prefer a touch more exp than shown there.

Great on many levels, tfs!

[John Mack]

Nice wing strech here. The background is killer.

[kevin Hice]

Thanks so much Steve I agree the crop in landscape looks better. Maybe just a tad brighter. Mine was definitely too bright. Thanks for the suggestions very helpful.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Kevin, no problem.

As Artie states - 'we all see things differently' so to what degree we tweak it is perhaps personal POV, but there are times IMHO that it just needs more of a 'fixed' 2/3rds of a stop under etc. The 1DX3 nails the exposure with the histogram so really you should just need to drop rather than increase exposure. I can see why you chose the format and in the heat of the moment I might have followed in your shoes, but to add canvas for a better comp on this is a breeze, so all good.