Theme: The Scowl

[Colin Driscoll]

Another from my Tawny Frogmouth session. At one stage the bird opened it's eye and proceeded to give some soft calls which I suspect was in response to calls from another roosting not too far away.
In any case it doesn't look too impressed with whatever was said!
R5 EF600 III tripod
1/500 f6.3 iso1600 manual
Competing with Artie's heron crop this is 5 mp, chopped the head off the full frame bird.
DPP4 CCPS2021
Slight lift of exposure, NR to BG only, sharpen only after resize for posting USM 30/1

[Kurt Bowman]

Nice detail for such a large crop. Wish you had a bit more DOF to get the beak totally sharp too. I am not a fan of the tree right behind the head hough.

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Colin ... great to see the eye and the close up would be great , if it was a somewhat " normal " crop .
You and others might find this ok or even good , my personal thinking is against this hefty pixel bashing . Might look ok here and in social media ... will never work in printing .

TFS Andreas

[John Mack]

Well the frogmouth does not look pleased having it's photo taken. Certainly fits the theme well.

[William Dickson]

Hi Colin....to me it's all about the camo....The bird is 'naturally' looking like how it should. I do think that you pushed it too much as far as a photograph goes ....the whole bird against the tree BG looked better in my opinion....Would love to come across a bird like this in daylight hours....A great opportunity, and I am sure you were well pleased to discover this bird in it's natural daylight setting...

Will

[Jonathan Ashton]

The bird is I appreciate intentionally large in the frame but I feel it is too big, for me it is somehow not comfortable to appreciate the whole head. I feel a lesser crop would also improve the IQ.

[Arthur Morris]

I like the open eye. All is looks fine to me.

with love, artie