Mockingbird

[Russell Martin]

Hello all, hope this finds you in good humor and health.

I found this fellow owning all he surveyed while passing by Gilcrease Museum this afternoon
40D, 70-300
shot at 300mm, f9.0, 1/640, ISO400
TV mode (no idea why, think it was an accident), AI focus and spot metering (again, not sure why)
Only PP was a crop, otherwise I have left it alone.

I dont really know how I could that annoying wall out the pic, C/C welcome and appreciated

Thank you

Doc

[Gail Spitler]

Hi Doc - The mockingbird is well positioned with a good HA. I'd work on the PP some to bring out the image a bit. I took the liberty of working on it a bit. Hope that's okay.
First I opened the image in ACR, moved the Exposure slider to the right and the Black slider to the left to set the white and black points. Next I cropped, then reduced the blue saturation to try to tone down the bg. Open in PS where I selected the bird & wall and inverted the selection. Ran Noise Reduction. Then inverted selection back to the original and sharpened with USM, and then High Pass (overlay), and finally sharpened the eye.

There's lots to like in the original image, but you do need to help it along if you are shooting in raw. I am still quite a novice at all this myself.

Cheers
Gail

[Lance Peters]

Repost looks good Gail!! - Very very close to what I was thinking.

[Julie Brown]

Nice HA and eye contact, and composition to begin with, but the repost from Gail and Lance really shows the need for PP. :)

[Alfred Forns]

Great re post Gail and lots of great information ... fully agree !!! Both Great!!

... did not see the exposure comp but the image is underexposed, remember to check your histogram after exposures and compensate !!!! Did a lot of good things here, good pose, placed bird to the left and clear bg !! Looking forward to the next one !!!

[Russell Martin]

Thank you Gail. I need to work on my PP skills, its a real weak point for me.

Thank you all for all the great comments!

Doc