Goldfinch on Sunflower

[Dave Blinder]

Could prob benefit from more DOF + Fill flash? This isn't cropped and I really wasn't sure what f-stop to use. The bird didn't get its head up long because it was feeding, this was by far the best pose I got. I cloned out a 2nd obscuring stem shooting in from the left, and added most of the left canvas.



Taken at Liberty State Park, New Jersey

Camera: Canon EOS 40D
Exposure: 0.001 sec (1/800)
Aperture: f/7.1
Focal Length: 700 mm
Exposure: 0.00
ISO Speed: 500
Exposure Bias: +2/3 EV
Flash: Off, Did not fire

[Marc Mol]

Lovely pose and light, nice and sharp as well, shame the flower has wilted.

[Hilary Hann]

I would agree with Marc, I like the pose and light on the bird. Nice details.

[Harshad Barve]

lovely pose and BG , flower mentioned
TFS

[nothsafoto]

Nice looking shot and the added canvas balances it nicely. Fill flash was not reqired here and may have degraded it. DOF is fine too with only the tail feathers slightly OOF which does not bother me personally.

Rob

[arash_hazeghi]

Very beautiful image, love the comp and eye contact. only wish if the tail was in focus.

[Graham Smith.]

I like this alot!
I think a little more DOF would be nice, but it's not too much of a distraction. I think the colours of the sunflower, bird, and BG complement each other well. There are some photoshopping artifacts on the LHS, evident behind the "ph" of the url you provided in the photo.

[Dave Blinder]

Thanks for the comments everyone.

At first I was disappointed by the state of the flower as well, but then I found that the wilted sunflower actually provided a possible somber theme to the image. It's grown on me, for sure.

Graham - Photoshopping artifacts noted, I'm cleaning that up for my final draft right now. Thanks!

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hi Dave,
I was going to mention taht I too am OK with the wilted flower.....for me it adds to the overall scene. I would have only preferred more sharpness on the tail and that it didn't mege with the stem.

[Arsdel Fluesmeier]

Very good pose of a Juvy Goldfinch. The slightly yellow bars on wing indicate that i t is a juvy'
The wilted sunflower doesn't bother me.