perching

[BillTyler]

Canon 7D
Canon 500mm f/4 + 1.4x
ISO 400
1/500 f/8

Late afternoon at Palo Alto Baylands

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Bill

Light looks good and also came up with a good exposure, would have liked the light more form behind you to illuminate the bird !! As presented cropping tighter on the sides (leaving more space on left) would eliminate some of the bg clutter, would try !!

btw tech wise might go wide open to minimize bg and if you can use a bit of flash would help with the shadows on the left side of the bird !!!

[Bob Decker]

Nice pose, like the head angle. BG is definately a bit busy... but I'm a master at finding birds in busy places. ;) I'd be inclined to do a little clonning on the small branch on the LH side and the one coming up under the bird's leg. The rest of it I could probably live with. As Al said, a tighter crop might eliminate some of the clutter and, with and 'L' lens, opening up more wouldn't have been a bad option.

[Bob Miller]

Hi Bill....love the light and that pose but the bg needs work esp the twig touching the bird on the LHS

[Lance Peters]

Hi Bill - all covered above - agree about the stick touching the bird - a little fill flash might have worked wonders here.
TFS

[Peter Farrell]

Nice one, Bill. I like the pose and perch. BG is busy but cloning out as described above would help.
Peter

[BillTyler]

Thanks for all the helpful comments. Here's a version cropped closer, with one branch cloned out.

Bill