Kea photographed in mountains near Milford Sound, South Island, New Zealand. These large alpine parrots are very tame and often perch on parked cars. It was a minor challenge finding one on a natural looking perch.
Canon 40D, EF 70-200mm f/4 @ 160mm, handheld, evaluative, ISO 320, f/5, 1/250, full frame.
Thought I could bring the image up somewhat. Took it into PS and played with Shad/Hglts. I fine tuned with levels and took some areas out of the backround.
I added a small bit of saturation and came up with this.
The subject is very interesting and I thought you handled the composition well.
Nice image, Simon. Good use of DOF to cover the bird while still rendering a nicely blurred BG. The feather textures are lovely. Compositionally I would prefer a little more room above and in front which would have required backing off the zoom a little. I would have used a little fill flash at capture time to open up some of the darker areas and brighten the feathers to achieve a similar look to the repost. Good job getting it on a natural perch - they can be a challenge in the well frequented areas sometimes.