John, nice low angle on this image. The exposure seems good and the bird's head is sharp but it could do with a better head turn toward the camera. I'd be tempted to try and remove the light tan and light brown OOF stems intersecting the bird's head.
That's about as clean a look at a Sora as you could hope for. Exposure and sharpness look pretty good. I'm sitting on a fence about the DOF. You chose to shoot wide open, likely to soften the BG which is very close to the bird. The problem is that only the eye and bill are truly sharp. I wonder what a little more DOF would have done to things? I'm not sure that it would have helped, but I'd probably have stopped down, figuring that I could always blur the BG later. I agree with Stephen about the intersecting vegetation.
john
lucky to see one out in the open
agree with the above comments
might also add/suggest cropping off the left side to minimize big black area with brown leaf in BG (doesn't add anything to the image)
Lots of good suggestions above. Getting rid of the two head spikes is a snap. Biggest problem is that the bird itself, not just the head, is angled away from you. Moving to your left would have helped.
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Thank you for the kind and constructive feedback. F4 was more of a screwup of mine than an educated choice. I had just left my car and entered the area when I saw this Sora hustling through the edge of the reeds. At that point, I still had my camera & lens in my backpack and I had to setup very quickly. Adjusted shutter speeds on the fly and confirmed by histogram. And forgot about F4 in the heat of the moment... :(
I have a few other shots where there might be less vegetation growing out of the head. And possibly even with a better head angle. :o
Sora
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