Blue Jay perched on stump

[Scott Grant]

D700
500mmVR
f5.6
1/400s
+0.3EV
(AUTO) ISO1400

Shot out my living room window.

Image finished in NX2 (major hot spot top right toned down). crop to 4:3 for presentation.

thanks for looking!

[Daniel Cadieux]

Great IQ. I love the bird's regal pose, BG, and perch. I'm wondering how this would have looked like as a vertical by cropping out the vegetation and a bit more room above.

[Marina Scarr]

You did a great job with this capture. The BG is killer and I love the inclusion of the vegetation. I do think it needs more room on the top.

[Harshad Barve]

awesome image, HA , BG and expo are spot on
TFS

[Brian Barcelos]

Wow that BG is amazing. Love the perch and the dried veg on the side. Agree it needs some more room up top and maybe a slight boost of the blues to make the bird really pop. Congrats

[Wally Nussbaumer]

Great shot, good detail and wonderful color. Lucky that you were able to get him/her to sit long enough for a good shot.

[Stu Bowie]

Scott, I like the setting, and what a good looking fellow. I like the overall exposure, together with the softer colours on the Blue Jay. I dont mind the foliage, but I think a vertical would work as well.

[John Chardine]

Lovely colour and smoothness to the image Scott (no doubt the D700 is action here). However, the smoothness is not at the cost of sharpness. My favourite images are those that show an "easy" sharpness, like this one. The colours are very attractive. I agree that some more room above should be considered.

[Doug Brown]

I like the image as presented. Stunning BG. I would boost the saturation of the bird to compete with that brilliant yellow BG.

[Morkel Erasmus]

bird pops nicely from the BG (which is stunning). Doug has a point on saturation of the bird...
lovely image all-in-all!

[arash_hazeghi]

Very nice soft light, BG, colors, perch. HA and SH both perfect. Well done

[Arsdel Fluesmeier]

Great pose and sharpness. I would have made it vertical and left the weeds out.

[Scott Grant]

thanks for the comments and suggestions. much appreciated as usual! :)

i do have some more room at the top in the original file. i shot this setup the day before without the seedpods and the images didn't seem as striking as this one.

thanks again to all!

SG