Curve-billed Thrasher high in Arizona Ash

[Gus Hallgren]

Hi, Photographed in my yard high up in an Arizona Ash, Green Valley AZ, at 3000' . 1/16/2008 94 AM using Olympus E-510 IS, Zuiko 70-300 1:4-5.6 ED (140-600 equiv) at full Focal Length 300mm, Manual 1/400 F10, Auto WB, EV 0.00. ISO 200 ~ Cropped, Resized ,Sharpen Edges in PS, Hand held sitting down. Another beautiful sunny morning. Gus

[Pete Woods]

This is a lovely image Gus, rather than sharpen edges or as well as, have you tried USM to see if the birds breast feathers sharpen slightly to give more detail?.. Just a suggestion

Well done :)

[Gus Hallgren]

Hi Pete, Thanks for your heads up. Yes,I did try USM at very low setting, and in large size, IMO looked over sharpened. Appreciate your comments . . . Gus

[David Dilworth]

Beautiful photo, Gus. I like your composition. The blue background looks a little funky to me. It looks quite good on the left side of the photo and then it seems a little pixilated on the right. Are you sure you didn't do a lilttle cloning in your post processing? I think I would work on the background a bit, because it is noticable enough to detract my attention from the bird. I also think a short tap of sharpening would be good. I usually can sharpen once before getting too much noise. If I hit it twice I might have to apply a little noise reduction (which sometimes does more harm than good). Sometimes I can sharpen the bird twice. I select the bird with the magic lasso and then reverse the selection and apply noise reduction to the background only, if necessary. I really like this bird!