Mésange bleue (blue tit)

[SeanKP]

A year ago I bought a cottage in Brittany. The main selling point for me was the garden, something I don't have living in London. In fact, it's my first ever proper garden! Sadly, I've been so busy that time spent there has been limited. Finally, over the christmas break I managed to spend some quality time in the garden. It was very cold but extremely rewarding. Here's my first shot taken in my very own garden.

Canon 40D + 400mm DO + 1.4TC. Evaluative Metering. No exposure compensation. ISO 400, F5.6 @ 1/500sec.

All c&c welcome as always.

Cheers.

Sean

[Nonda Surratt]

Lovely Sean and big congrats on your garden and the time to enjoy it!

Great HA and colors, the BG is super! I wonder how this would look as a vertical?

[Alfred Forns]

Big Congrats Sean !!! Love your visitor

I'm undecided on the left side? Might want to crop and have the beauty larger in frame Either way its gorgeous. btw if you get a chance post the garden in Friends and Family !!!

[denise ippolito]

Sean, Great shot!!!! Love the BG and details in feathers- HA is awesome-love it!!!

[Gus Cobos]

Hi Sean, I like the composition , image and capture...you display beautiful colors on your subject with sharp details I like the slanted pose on the diagonal perch...and the background earth tones helps showcase your bird very nicely. Congratulations....on a job well done...
I modified your base composition to show you an alternate point of view, see if you like...:cool:

[SeanKP]

Thanks for the comments guys, I really appreciate them. I agree that the composition is not perfect although I was following all the rules as best I could. Gus, your composition breaks the rules in that the bird is looking out of the frame but, for some reason, it really works. I love it so much more than my 'safe' version.

My only excuse I guess is that I had this version which just had to be a vertical crop (because of the head angle) that I missed the more interesting crops available to me on the original.

Cheers.

Sean

PS: It didn't seem to like an image 1000 pixels high so I've had to post a smaller version.

[Dave Leroy]

Hi Sean. Nice one. I like the ha on the first and Gus's repost brightens it up and brings out the colours even more. I hope you find time to enjoy the garden and smell the roses. Dave