Highlight of a Gloomy Day

[Dick Glover]

It has rained steadily for 5 days in Savannah so spending lots of time photographing the yard from the back door. Among the many Cardinals, Blue Jays and Chickadees, this lone Painted Bunting female appeared just long enough for 2 snaps. Hope she brings a mate back.
Canon 50d, 500mm f/4 plus 1.4x, ISO 800, AV, 1/320, f/5.6

[Dave Leroy]

Very nice look back pose Dick. Looks like some bg noise on my monitor so may a pass of nr. Well done and not a lot of time. Dave

[Phil Liew]

A little noisy on the bg Dick as above. I see a touch oof around the eye, perhaps it is due to the shallow DOF. Good catch all the same.

[Juan Aragonés]

I love the simple composition, soft light, BG and head turn of the bird and, of course, the matching between colors in the bird and BG. The BG has some color noise that you can remove using a mask and a pass of noise reduction ONLY to the BG. I think that you did it but included the perch too and that is not great. For a good result with noise reduction filter you should avoid to use it on the areas with lots of details (in this case, the bird and the perch) or you can use different amounts of noise reduction to different parts of the image: strong in the areas without details (like the BG) or dark areas and soft in the areas with details. Hope this helps :-)

[Linda Robbins]

Nice pose, good head angle and a clean composition. I would selectively sharpen the entire head. It appears that the point of focus was on the bird's back rather than on the eye.

[Dick Glover]

Thanks to all for your very helpful comments. I have reworked this image trying to apply your suggestions and will be interested in your reactions.
Dick

[Bryan Erb]

Repost is much better, really like the simple composition, nice head turn and eye comtact.