Northern Mockingbird

[Julie Brown]

This is my first post on the avian forum.:eek:

The foliage around the bird and perch is a problem, as well as the OOF twig going through the bird's tail. Not sure if the crop works either. Need help with this one. :)

Canon 40D, 300mm f4L IS, f4.5 @ 1/500sec, ISO 320, 0 EV, pattern metering, manual mode, HH

PP: Lightroom 2.6
cropped more than 50%
exposure: set black and white points, highlight recovery, added fill light
enhanced clarity and vibrance, slight boost to saturation, added contrast
tone curve: brought down darks and lights
used GND filter to darken BG and enhance colors
clone tool: removed reflections from beak
adjustment brush: darken whites, selectively sharpened head and beak
Sharpening, NR and post-crop vignette

[Randy Stout]

Julie:

Welcome to avian:)

Your bird is well exposed, the eye really stands out, wing detail shows well.

I do agree about the foliage. For me, the OOF elements in the foreground of a picture tend to impact me more than those behind the bird.
There is just a little bit of a green color cast. I tried the blur average color technique at about 40% opacity, and thought is looked quite natural.

I might consider cropping in a bit from both the right and from the top.

Look forward to more.

Cheers

Randy

[arash_hazeghi]

Welcome to the Avian forum Julie! and nice post, good advice by Randy.
Very nice BG and light BTW! Comp wise would try to avoid branches in FG if possible, shots like these critical focus point makes a big difference! would try to put the AF sensor on the head.

BTW, might be able to clone the diagonal oof branch in FG!
Nice head turn and eye contact.

Looking forward to more.

[Julie Brown]

Thank you for the helpful comments Randy and Arash. This is my first mockingbird image, and I'm hoping to get more. I'm afraid my cloning skills aren't yet up to removing that OOF twig!:)

[Grace Scalzo]

HI Julie, Lovely bird and background and the eye contact makes a good connection with the viewer. Your own self-assessment sums up the problems with the image. Where I live mockingbirds are quite common and their behavior and choice of perch are quite predictable. If that's the case, I'd clean up this perch (remove the pine needle, remove the out of focus front piece, and trim away some of the small sprigs coming off the main stem, etc). Then try and get closer and hope he lands. That would be my approach rather than try and clone away the undesirable elements. Looking forward to more of your images.

[Julie Brown]

Thank you for the suggestions, Grace. Good advice for other birds as well. I am going to try to set up some baited perches in my yard this spring and see what I can draw in.

I got this shot in Florida over Christmas break at a state park. I will be on the lookout now for mockingbirds-I will have to scout where they might hang out in my area.:)

[Daniel Cadieux]

Beautiful specimen here, and a lovely pose it gave you. Perfect head turn for the backside view. Sweet, sweet BG! I agree with yourself and the others about the FG OOF branch, but I'm OK with the other branches. The more than 50% crop is starting to show its effects in the fine details (as posted anyways)...perhaps some additional sharpening (to the bird only) would help bring some of those back for web display. Comp-wise I feel this guy is tucked to the side a little too closely. I'd add back about 1/2" - 3/4" of canvas to the left, and then remove the same amount at right to keep the aspect ratio intact.

Oh, BTW, welcome to the Avian forum!!:)

[Julie Brown]

Thank you Daniel. My photoshop skills are limited. I re-cropped and sharpened a bit more. Might be a slight improvement.

I appreciate all of the comments.:)