African Stonechat

[Stu Bowie]

This was taken in a small nature reserve close to my house last weekend. I removed some grasses along the bottom.

Canon 50D
100-400 @ 400mm
1/800
F/6.3
ISO 200

Exp Comp +0.33
Hand held from the car.

[denise ippolito]

Stuart, I like the pose and HA. The BG is pleasing,thou I do see some signs of compression. Lovely details. Nicely done.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the eye contact and exposure control and would only tone down the highlights on the neck some more.

[David Fletcher]

Beautiful pose and light Stu. Am seeing some compression in the bg, but that's minor and the details and pose are superb.

[Joe Senzatimore]

Glad you cleaned up the bottom a bit. Great BG and color on the subject is wonderful.

[Tony Whitehead]

Lovely pose, colours and BG, Stuart. I might clean up the fine twig running up onto the low breast. Reminds me of driving around Marievale last year as we saws heaps of these perched like this.

[Ilija Dukovski]

I love it. Pose, perch, nice bird. I also like the interesting and elongated vertical crop.
Nicely done.

[Brian Barcelos]

Agree with Tony about the twig, other than that I love this image.

Brian

[arash_hazeghi]

Nice exposure Stuart, love the eye detail and BG!

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Very nice species. Nice composition. I agree about compression.

[Stu Bowie]

Thanks a lot guys and Denise.

Tony, this was at Rietvlei, about 30 mins from my house. I know you went to the Irene lodge,when you were here, did you ever get to Rietvlei?

[Arno Ellmer]

Great pose and sharpness,Stuart.The two-tone bg makes it for me .

[Gal Shon]

I like this one. Colors, light and BG are superb.
A slight halo is noticeable, I'm not decisive about the Comp.

[Stu Bowie]

Arno, Gal, thanks for the kind words guys. Much appreciated.