Oklahoma Campground Bird

[ChasMcRae]

Camping in hardwood forest in Wichita Ntl.Wildlife Refuge,Ok. and sort of surprised to find primarily Eastern birds.
Picture Of White-breasted Nuthatch with fall leaf colors behind.

Chas.
Nuthatch#2_White-breasted_Ok_-01 copy.jpg
File size: 153KB
Camera Model: Canon EOS-1D Mark II
Firmware: Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows
Date/Time: 2008:11:06 1734
Shutter speed: 1/80 sec
Aperture: 6.3
Exposure mode: Av
Exposure compensation: -2/3
Flash: On
Metering mode: Multi-segment
ISO: 400
Focal length: 840mm
Image size: 566 x 800
Rotation: none
Color space: sRGB
Color profile: sRGB IEC61966-2.1

[Fabs Forns]

Lovely warm BG, Chas. I think a little more trunk to the right would serve two purposes: One, to balance the dual tones with a closer to 2:1 ratio, according to the rule of thirds, and second, virtual body is cut.
There are some halos around the perch and I may clone out the white dot at the tip of the bill.
Plumage may use a little less sharpening.
Very well exposed and also, you could place him a bit higher in the frame, again according to the rule of thirds.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Cool pose and BG. I agree with Fabs regarding the crop and it looks as if you blurred the trunk, which I would not do. The bird has a slight blue cast on my monitor and looks oversharpened.

[Doug Brown]

Agree with the comments by both Fabs and Axel. Did you use any flash exposure compensation? If so, what was the setting?

[ChasMcRae]

If I remember it was minus 1 2/3s on Canon 550Ex flash which is what I use as a standard. I was also playing with new sharpening software and I see I overdid it.
The virtual body cutoff did not bother me on this image as compared to when I cut deer feet off or the tip of a bird tail.
Perhaps the picture should actually be a face portrait crop.

Chas.