yellow on blue

[Rene Quenneville]

I have been following these critters for a few weeks. They are so tinny and skittish. They make me push my gear to the limit. My 300mm +2X TC images need to be substantialy cropped to produce this image. Of course it reduces the sharpness and details. I was lucky to find this point of view without a busy background.
Please give me your thoughts. (Note that the yellow seems to be blown on this JPEG but it is not on the original PSD)
1/1250
f/9
ISO 400
fill flash with BB
600mm (300mm +2X TC)

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the singing pose and eye contact and would sharpen the bird more if it doesn't bring out too much noise.

[Daniel Cadieux]

I also find these guys tougher to approach - some other warbler species are much more tolerant or easy to attract. I agree with your self-assesment (re: details, yellows). I find the perch rather unattractive with it's broken off tips and I find the angle a bit steep. I do like the calling pose and the yellows (although hot) look good against the blue sky.

[Paul Wolf]

Rene, you might try to control your yellows via the Deep Blue Photofilter a la a tutorial found on this site: http://www.birdphotographers.net/for...ter#post251059. I agree with Axel on the sharpening.

I tried both the above on the JPEG with good results but doing it on the PSD should work much better, of course. I personally don't mind the perch, but a little rotation might be good.

I've always liked the simple shots against a plain blue sky like this. You did well to capture this at an angle that gave you this clear background, especially with a bird that can't seem to sit still most of the time.

[Rene Quenneville]

Thank you all for your comments. Paul, the post was very interresting.

Here is a repost with more sharpening, reduced color intensity and some CCW rotation. Then I applied a blue filter at 38% which also helped the sky. Another run of noise reduction and a level adjustment to reduce mid tone contrast. I think the picture has improved.