Female Northern Cardinal

[Joel Eade]

It's snowing here and everything is white ... I had to push the exposure way to the right in order to get the bird exposed correctly and this blew the background out completely.

1DMKIII
300mm 2.8L + 1.4TC
Manual exposure
Evaluative metering
ISO 1000
1/1000
f/4
Fill Flash 580 EXII off camera left set to 1/4 power manual

ACR, CS5, sharpened with Genuine Fractals

[Bill Dix]

Nice one, Joel. Great hi-key look, and great use of flash. Feathers are nice and sharp, except for her crest which I assume is a DOF issue due to the f/4. Terrific look-back pose.

[Andrew Merwin]

This is a beautiful image. I like the high key look & the bits of snow on the cardinal. Well captured.

[Julie Kenward]

Joel, it's a beautiful pose you have here...great eye contact and a good overall view of the bird.

It felt a little overexposed to me so I opened it up in levels and hit the "auto" button just to see what would happen and it pulled the mid and dark tones down a bit more as I thought it might. To me, this gives it a more natural appearance. I also think you have a slight blue cast to the reds and to the bird overall so I pushed the blue more towards the yellow side to bring out the natural red/orange of these birds.

You've got a nice crop but there are two things that I thought might make it stronger - losing the end of the twig that's OOF near the bottom of the frame and putting the bird a little more on a diagonal so it didn't feel quite so centered. I used a 7x10" crop, cut it closer on all sides from your original and then turned it a bit before saving.

See what you think. (The black frame is only to separate the white BG of the image from the white BG of the screen).

[Paul Guris]

I like the image a lot, and I think Jules suggestions are a definite improvement. If you can tone down the highlights which should reduce the background but not really anything on the bird, I think it would be less jarring while still retaining the feel.

[Joel Eade]

Julie,

Thanks for looking and helping out, I see your point about the colors and the repost is better in that regard.

I like the looser, original crop, better although I understand why you suggested the change.:)

I may try to copy/paste a section of the perch over the oof area.

Thanks again, I appreciate the critique and your efforts in the ETTL forum!

Joel

[Dave Leroy]

Very nicely done.

Of the two I prefer the bird in Jules's repost with a little more room.

High key works well here.

A really nice pose.

Dave

[Joel Eade]

I agree with you Dave and thanks for looking & commenting.

[Rob Mckenzie]

Stunning!! I prefer the original capture. It has a more natural look to it. The repost has a little too much contrast for my taste. I agree with the colours having a bluish cast to them though.