Blue Tit

[SeanKP]

I am proud of this shot but it is with more than a little trepidation that I post it in this forum. I am consistently blown away by the incredible artistry on display here. All my previous posts have been to the 'Eager To Learn' forum and with good reason. I'd like to think that this is a significant improvement on all of those and if it is it is due to the incredible feedback I have received there. I apologise if this does not belong here and please feel free to move it back to the ETL forum if that is where it belongs.

This is a slight crop to move the bird from centre. For those not familiar with this bird, it is fairly small, about 4 inches from bill to tail. It was pretty dark hence ISO 800, F4.5 @ 1/40 sec. It was taken with a 40D and 400mm DO. No tripod but I used the window frame of the hide for some support. Constructive criticism welcomed.

[Nicki Gwynn Jones]

Hi Sean,
This is a beautiful shot of one of my very favourite birds. Feather detail looks terrific, as does the sharpness and that BG is to die for. The one-legged pose and cheeky look take it over the top for me. Well done!
Regards,
Nicki

[Daniel Cadieux]

Sean, this is rather beautiful and definitely belongs here!! I really love the BG with the whisps of evergreen. This image would have benefitted greatly from fill-flash as the bird and perch could use a bit more light on them. I seem to detect a blueish cast here too. Here is a repost that I hope you don't mind I've done for you.

To get rid of the blueish cast I set the black point in the pupil and then upped the brightness of the overall image to get the bird and perch out of the darkness (both of these steps in Levels). This rendered the BG a little too yellow and intense so I selectively desat the yellows in the BG. A bit of dodging in the eye/face area and voila! Took all of 2 minutes.

P. S. Keep them coming!

[joel quenneville]

The nice head angle, eye contact and one-legged pose combine to give this image its appeal. Your perch is also quite interesting. The image has a magenta color-cast which could be corrected in the post-processing. Also fill-flash would have opened up the shadows and given you a better catchlight.

[Ramon M. Casares]

Repost does make a difference! Either way, very nice shot! Big congrats!

[Judy Lynn Malloch]

This is a very lovely image and the pose and slight head turn and the beautiful BG and tucked up leg just makes it for me. Beautiful work and thanks for sharing Sean.

[Nikolay Staykov - shotlandetsa]

A very good image with mood and much better repost!

[SeanKP]

I too prefer Daniel's repost and I have since revisited the raw and fixed the cast and added some brightness. Thank you all for your helpful comments.