Female Red Crossbill

[Arsdel Fluesmeier]

40D, Canon 100-400@400mm, 1/250 f 9.0, ISO 400

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Nice find and good sharpness. I wish the bird were angled toward you and some of the highlights are overexposed.

[Daniel Cadieux]

To add to what Axel mentions, I also wish there was more room at bottom. Good view of the crossed bill. I do see an artefact of sorts at bill-tip.

[Robert Amoruso]

Arsdel,

A beautiful bird. Good comments above. The light was your enemy here. Having to expose for the darker bird caused highlights to overexpose and lose detail.

The BG, with the multiple bright spots is distracting. Humans are drawn to bright objects and in this case, the bright BG spots take attention away from your subject. Look for this bird in shadow, create shadow using a diffuser or make use of fill-flash. With flash you can expose for the highlights and use flash to fill in the shadows.