American Goldfinch

[Filomena Larson]

Had to stay in with the kids today. Had a little time for some finches. C and C welcome. Thanks for looking.

40D
700mm
1/400
7.1
exposure bias .33
ISO 320

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the soft light, details, pose and BG. I might give it a bit more room, just a personal preference.

[Aidan Briggs]

I would like a little room too, as I don't like square crops. Also it looks as though your focus was on the breast, as that is the sharpest point.

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Nice image, looks a tad bit tight and maybe work the eye some, nice detail.

[Don Anderson]

Fil, nice shot.. I agree a little soft in the eye and bill area.
I don't mind a sq. crop, and very nice background.

[Arthur Morris]

Hi Fil, The eye looks sharp to me. In addition to the above, I like the pose and the HA. Could use a contrast boost.... I do not hate SQ crops but with this one, some more room on the right is in order.

[Tell Dickinson]

The eye looks ok to me also, lovely capture and I really like the bg, agree with the 'little more room' and small 'contrast boost' to make it even better :)

Tell

[Filomena Larson]

Thank you for your nice comments everyone.

I added contrast and more room and it does look better. As for the eye being soft, I believe in many cases this is somewhat of an illusion. For example, the wings on a cedar waxwing are very smooth and can appear to be "soft" even in the sharpest focus. When we observe a very feathered bird like goldfinch and compare that to the eye it can give an illusion of the eye being soft and the center of focus on the wing.

[Arthur Morris]

So let's see it!

[Filomena Larson]

Here is the re-post.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks Fil. It looks much better with the room in front of the bird. Above is my version. How many changes can y'all see?

[Arthur Morris]

Ooops. Just noticed the big whitish circle....

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Somebody did work the eye and took a bit off the bottom.

[Arthur Morris]

Jeff, So far so good but there is more...

[Jeff Cashdollar]

You moved the bird forward in the frame (or added canvas) and lighten the image too.

[Filomena Larson]

Looks great! Did you remove a little noise as well?

[Tell Dickinson]

You made the back of the head and the back itself lighter ?

Tell

[Arthur Morris]

And the face. I did not run NR but after I fixed the big o-o-f whtie area, I selected the BKGR, did Refine Edge, and ran about a 2 pixel Gaussian Blur for smoothing the BKGR changes that I made. It works a lot like NR. Glad you liked Fil.