Yellow-rumped Warbler

[Bill Dix]

D90, 800-400 VR @ 400mm; ISO 400, 1/1250s @ f/5.6; Matrix metering, -1.0 EV, Aperture priority, AF-A, HH.

There was no shortage of these guys at Sandy Hook last month. Might have wished for a slight turn of the head. Cropped to perhaps 60% of original width and pruned some offending branches. C&C appreciated.

[denise ippolito]

Bill, Agree w/ your comment about HA. I like the pose,details and sharpness. Exposure looks good and you did a great job getting the tail in focus!Seems to be my problem w/ these little birds. Nice natural perch. Maybe some NR in BG.

[Gail Spitler]

Bill - For me the image has quite a painterly feel to it. Very, very nice. Fall yellow-rumps are lovely.
Well done.
Cheers
Gail

[Gus Cobos]

Hi Bill,
The composition, image and capture is superb...really nice, the soft dark background showcases him quite well...good show...:cool:

[Lance Peters]

Hi Bill - good show - exposure looks good, does have a great feel, just the mentioned head turn.
Looking forward to more :)

[Katie Rupp]

What a sweet little bird! I like the dark background and nice details.

[Bill Dix]

Thank you all. I did capture one other image of him, with better HA. But because the light was coming a bit from the side, the better HA meant that part of his head was in shadow, whereas in the OP he was looking directly toward the light. So I think I like the OP better, but I'm posting the other version here to see if anyone thinks otherwise. (Note that it's less of a crop.)

Denise, I did run several passes of Topaz Denoise on the OP, but maybe because the BG is so dark it still needs more. I think that's also true of this second post. Thanks for looking.

[denise ippolito]

Bill, I like the OP better. Sometimes on dark BG's I run a couple of rounds of NR also.(but only to the BG)