The heading of this post could have easily been "Goofing around with PS II" because of the major cleaning I did for the BG but here at least I tried to keep the original BG with dodging, burning and what not. My self critic is related to the HA which could have been a little better and the composition of the photo. I tried different kinds of horizontal and vertical crops and I didn't really like any of them. This was the best I could do...
Cheers,
Mikko
EOS 1DMK3
500mm 4.0L + 1.4 II TC
Gitzo + Jobu BW
Av Mode
Evaluative metering + 1/3
ISO 500
f/7.1
1/500
what a gorgeous little bird and background - and what beautiful detail in those whites. I love the light ring around his eye --- like the diagonal the perch makes too.
Lovely shot Mikko,
I know it would have only been marginal, but you had a bit of DOF left to play with at f7.1. Could you have taken it at f5.6 and lessened the background effect [although not sure what it looked like before cleaning], but still kept this small bird in focus. It's only a small point, but what a lovely image all the same.
Richard, my only concern with him opening up the aperture is that the tail is almost OOF now as it is; if he took it down another notch it might really lose relation to the body of the bird.
Mikko, when the bird's eye is almost dead center because of the angle it is always hard to find a pleasing crop (at least for me.) I think you did very well - I personally might shave a little off the top and keep the rest of the frame as is.
Beautiful catch light! And excellent exposure on the whites/blacks. This is one tough bird to shoot well and you did a very nice job!
Chickadee
