Carolina Chickadee

[Duane Noblick]

Full EXIF Info
Date/Time	20-Mar-2009 16:41:15
Make	Canon
Model	Canon EOS 40D
Flash Used	No
Focal Length	400 mm
Exposure Time	1/400 sec
Aperture	f/7.1
ISO Equivalent	200
Exposure Bias
White Balance
Metering Mode	partial (6)
JPEG Quality
Exposure Program	aperture priority (3)
Focus Distance

Photographed in the backyard, tripod and a conveniently placed perch for optimal BG and light.

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

I would try a square crop - though not my preferred option personally - or vertical? Not sure, as the perch is horizontal and it may look strange. However, I do feel there is a little too much negative space to the right.

On a postitive note, the image is well exposed, pin sharp and you had captured the height of the action so huge congrats to you for that! :)

[Steve Canuel]

Nice, simple image. Sharp, nicely colored, and an open beak to boot. Nicely done.

[Desmond Chan]

I like the light and the overall atmosphere of this image. If you want, may be crop off a bit of the right, like more of a 8x10 instead of a 8x12.

[David Thomasson]

I agree with all the other comments. You caught this bird in a wonderful pose.

You could do the details more justice with levels and shadow/highlight filter selectively applied.

[David Roach]

I agree with Akos on the crop suggestions and like the original post better; great light and good detail in both dark and light plumage.

[Brian Wong]

Hi Duane!

Terrific call pose with nice detail. To me, it suffered by the dark head blending too much with the dark background, and like what David did to make a nice separation.

[Duane Noblick]

Thank you for the suggestions. I tried a vertical crop at first but felt the bird needed more space....the image is sized for an 8 X 10 print...posted image is just resized to 900 pixels on the longest side. I dislike square crops but tried it just to see along with some levels adjustments.




David...thank you for the edit but that's not my cup of tea...I know you didn't have much to work with but it looks too washed out. On my monitor and in the print there's enough of a separation of the head and background for my taste. I tend not to do much post processing to my images...too much and they aren't how I remember them when I took them. If they aren't up to par I will try again.