I also like the pose but in addition to seeming a tad soft it also seems a tad harsh, almost like it's over processed. I'm having a hard time putting my finger on it, but it reminds me of many old film photos I had seen.
I love the perch, probably once again putting me at odds with the "natural" perch people. The old fence post with lichens looks great to me.
The image does look contrasty too me too, and I also agree with sharpening the bird and perch. I love the look-back pose. I'm pretty sure the MKIV can handle higher ISOs:p therefore I am wondering why you would give yourself such a slow SS to work with especially with such a big FL?
I agree with all posts. I'm not sure "what" kicked the contrast over the top but I absolutely know "who" kicked it over the top :o
Softness... It's probably a combo of slow shutter and the 800 f5.6 (most likely culprit). It doesn't tolerate bad technique and DOF is razor sharp at the distance I was shooting (9.9 meters according to the EXIF), even at f8. Th Online DOF calculator says DOF is .01 feet st f8 snf 9.9m. That's less than an 1/8th of an inch. If you look closely the eye and beak are sharp. All else is lost in the depths so to speak. All in all it's not my favorite lens for this reason. In my opinion the 600 f4, even with a 1.4x TC, outperforms it. I didn't select the 800 for this outing on purpose. During the Bosque trip the 800 was put into the 600 case and vice versa. I didn't catch that until I was in the field so I made due.
Daniel- to paraphrase an old movie and good song- What we've got here, is failure to pay attention to his camera settings. Some men just don't pay attention to that when the sun is going down fast and the subject wants to leave. So you get what we had here last week (or a couple of days ago .) I basically saw the sparrow, managed to stop directly across from it without scaring it, set the camera on the window ledge, rolled the dial and shot.