song sparrow

[Joel Arrington]

Canon 40D, manual, 1/250 @ f/8, ISO 200, 70-200 +2x ext., flash fill

[Arthur Morris]

Lovely pose, COMP, and head angle but most of your posts look a bit over-SATURATED to me and too contrasty. I think that if you tone those two things down here you would have a fine image. I would QM out the little nub in the lrc.

later and love, artie

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Very nice pose and eye contact. The chest looks a bit overflashed. Maybe you could tone down the whites a bit. Did you use FEC?

[Joel Arrington]

what is FEC?

[Axel Hildebrandt]

what is FEC?

FEC stands for flash exposure compensation. On an overcast day, you could try to set it to about -1 2/3 to make the light and colors look natural.

[Doug Brown]

How's this for a quick reworking? Made it a little less contrasty and saturated, ran levels, evened out BG, some selective sharpening, and a little cloning in the lower right corner.

[Arthur Morris]

Huge improvement Doug!

Thanks and later and love, artie

[Joel Arrington]

Thanks for the advice. All very worthwhile. However, the image should look as much like the bird as possible. Both song sparrows and white-throated sparrows sport brownish-red, call it mahogany, stripes on a white background. I have been observing them at zero range for months. The reworked image looks like a washed-out version of the real thing.

[Arthur Morris]

hey Joel, Your image, your call, but the first post is definitely too contrasty...

later and love, artie