Red legged Partridge (Alectoris rufa)

[Jonathan Ashton]

Hand held, I accept not the best gackground but it is not too often a situation like this presents itself.

OM-1 150-400TC
Focal Length (35 mm conversion) : 545.0mm
Exposure mode : Manual exposure
ISO : 20,000
Exposure compensation : +0.3 EV
Shutter : 1/1600 sec
Aperture : F4.5

ACR/PSCC

[Colin Driscoll]

The bird looks good Jon, particularly under the circumstances.
Surely the image needs some CCW rotation?

[Jonathan Ashton]

Thanks Colin, the bird was on an incline so although it looks a bit cock-eyed it is correctly oriented.

[Sidharth Kodikal]

high ISO handled very well. Not the cleanest BG, but not too distracting/obtrusive either. The only part in the BG that distracts me is the green vine that touches the beak in the BG.

[Steve Kaluski]

A typical environment Jon, or running through the lanes of a wheat field/rape field. You did well to get this close albeit you don't say how much of a crop? No too shabby for the OM at ISO20k and I guess f7/1 in old money? What was he doing with the wings outstretched they are normally tucked in?

The head appears at this size to be sharp, a bit more detail I might have expected but, motion blur in the wing I quite like. Not struck on the slight cast, easy corrected and I think you could afford a bit more pruning, in the FG/BKG just so its less distracting to the subject. I quite like the low POV, were you kneeling Jon?

As presented and just a few minor tweaks, I would suggest look at the base colour, run a bit more NR in the BKG, somehow address the FG angled branch and bring the crop down to looses that white cut on the bramble bush.

If you had the time, as the move, deal with some of the major elements in the distracting BKG and maybe go darker but add prominence to the subject.

TFS
Steve

[Joseph Przybyla]

Hi Jon, nice image of the partridge in its environment. A bird I am not familiar with, the partridges I saw when living up north were shades of brown. The image looks really good for ISO 20K. Thank you for sharing.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Thanks for comments and feedback everyone.
Steve the crop was minimal, essentially to 3:2, regards prominence I did that, maybe a tad more would enhance.