In-flight Waxwing (with concerns)

[Philippe Collard]

Greetings,

I managed to capture this guy in flight this morning. Lighting condition were pretty rough, the sun was blasting and it was around noon. The bird was partly in the shadows. I tried to save this image but I still have a lot of concerns about it. Let me know what you believe is wrong and we'll see if we have the same nits ;)

Cheers and have a nice one,

Philippe.



Canon EOS 20D
Tv(Shutter Speed) 1/1600Sec.
Av(Aperture Value) F7.1
ISO Speed 200
Focal Length 420.0 mm
Cropped about 80% from original

[Alfred Forns]

Head and wing position is what I see most of all ..... and also see most of all its a remarkable capture

Might consider leaving the bird without any perch since there is so little of it I'm on the road on a laptop so can't see the fine details Will take a look when I get home tomorrow

[Philippe Collard]

Thanks Alfred. Looking forward to having your second thoughts when you're back at home :)

[Harold Davis]

phenomenal capture, good exposure, i just dont like the head angle. i'd like to see some eye contact. also, there is a dark streak running across the top frame that is distracting. the greenery doesnt bother me much.

[Nonda Surratt]

Everything has been covered but WOW that is some image! Love the yellows and those feet!

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Philippe I'm staring at it from my home monitor Can only imagine that bird with the head turned You did real well in PS Would still remove the branches and dark streak I know it looks odd without any branch but there is so little?

The feather detail and feel is incredible !!!

[Philippe Collard]

Thanks for taking the time to look at it again Alfred, much appreciated. I indeed use a bit of PS on this one. The head was in the shadow and totally underexposed, I duplicated the image and adjusted exposure on the second layer. Then I drew a layer mask to have the new exposure applied on the head only. I know I could have used highlight/shadows but I had to push it too far and that did not look good.

So you would keep the bird and the background only?? The uniform greyish colour comes from a building that was right behind the bird. I am afraid it would look too unreal. Maybe I could add branches, just kidding :)

One of my concerns too was that overall this shot does not look that sharp, the feet are especially bugging me but maybe I am asking too much. I'll work on this image tonight and I'll post the improvement (if any) here.

Thanks again and cheers!