Golden-crowned Sparrow

[Dave Leroy]

Early morning on a bit of snowy beach, so it may be a bit dull. 50D, 70/200 f4 at 169mm, f4, 1/100, ISO400,Av mode.
Dave

[Harold Davis]

not dull to me! sharp bird and a nice feel. only wished the grasses werent in front of the bird, but still not bad! not sure but seems to have a little color cast to it? easily fixed.

[denise ippolito]

Dave, doesn't look dull on my monitor-I like how the grasses surround the bird-but don't over power him-great details and nice eye!

[Gus Cobos]

Hi Dave,
I like what you were trying to do here, but you have too many grass blades touching the bird; these you would need to clone out with a little bit of patience. the snowy patch on the lower left side of the frame is too hot, need to tone that down, whites are pass the 255 mark. I also see some cloning marks or artifacts around the head and bill area. I cropped the composition a bit to show you an alternative angle, and also boosted the saturation and contrast...see if you like...:cool:

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Dave I like it !!

This is more personal taste than anything else and images like these you need to get used to having varied comments. I find the hard to do and make them work. Yours is fine and appealing and would only back down the sharpening.

The little bird has been carefully placed avoiding merges with the grasses and with a good head angle. I like the flowing grasses Neat image Big Congrats !!!

[Dan Brown]

Hi Dave, I like it too. A couple of suggestions would be to back off on the sharpening for the bird and run some noise reduction on the OOF BG and FG. In my repost, I selected the bird and the strip of sand etc that looks sharp with a QM (quick mask), protecting it, and then ran Noise Ninja on the rest of the image, upping the noise reduction and adding no sharpening at all. It seems to have smoothed out the noise in the OOF areas.

[Nonda Surratt]

Dave I also like it! The grass almost frames the face and the HA is nice. As has been mentioned would back off the sharpening.

[Dave Leroy]

Thanks Everyone for looking and especially for all the helpful suggestions. I finished the first read of ABP1 and am now starting to work on PP'n, as per ABPII and all the suggestions here.
Dave

[Oscar Zangroniz]

I like your image as presented. The grass blades do not bother me at all, as a matter of fact I think they add to your composition. You also have great head angle. I agree with Al regarding this being an image of personal taste.

[Jackie Schuknecht]

Like Dan's treatment and Gus' repost. Colours on your bird look great, just wondering if there is a bit of colour cast in the snow or is that just normal exposure? Anys very well done. Love the grasses adds to the feel for me.