A male House Finch from backyard set-up taken a few days ago. Bird was a little high and too far right in the comp so I adjusted the comp without cropping.
Nikon D200
80-400 VR lens @ 400mm (600mm effective)
ISO 200
f8 @ 1/160 sec.
Experimented with the small SB400 for a touch of fill.
I might tone down the highlights a little to soften the fill flash a bit, and probably remove the lower catchlight. The bird looks a little bit soft to me, perhaps a bit of motion blur at this shutter speed?
I could also see a small crop from the right. Because his angle of gaze is somewhat forward (towards us) I don't think you need as much space to the right.
Randy has provided some dead-on constructive criticism regarding this beautiful house finch image so I won't add to the suggestions for improvement. I think that house finches are such a gorgeous bird and you caught this sweety on a nice perch. I'm surprised it isn't more in total focus with that f stop you used. Thanks.
Aside from losing one catchlight this looks very good to me, and sharp enough. If anything, a contrast mask on the bird would increase the apparent sharpness.....mLove the perch and the way the pose works with it.
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Nice comp and colours. I like the perch (nicely weathered) and beautiful BG. Neat scaling on the chest feathers too. For me critical focus does not seem to be on the face?...the perch, feet, and part of the wing all seem to be sharper than the face.
Don't be scared to raise the ISO...the additional SS will help you get a better rate of "keepers" otherwise lost by subject/camera shake due to low SS.