March theme : Straight down the Barrel - Freckles

[pat lillich]

had a nice morning at the Palo Alto wetlands today - met Allen Hirsch from the forum there, and best of all, my husband Alan toted the sigmonster around and I got to use it without the pain of carrying it!

Nikon d300, sigma 300-800 f/5.6 at 750mm, 1/2000 sec at f/8, iso 400m aperture priority.

faded a splotch on his front, lightened shadows on upper eyes, and thought about fading the shadow from his bill but it seemed to fit the theme.
wish I had stopped down and gotten more depth of field.

thank you for looking!

[Arthur Morris]

He sure is staring down the barrel. A good Linear Burn on the Whites here would even out the EXP. I suspect a Blue cast.


Great to see you here :)

[Sid Garige]

Pat,

Very nice Motif image. Great suggestion by Artie on improving the whites. Very nice job.

If I may, considering the narrow DOF at 750mm making another image with focus point on beak and image stacking will yield end to end sharp image.

[Clemens Vanderwerf]

Pat, nice and sharp on the eyes. Love the freckles. I would prefer a more vertical crop, and some more canvas on top.

[Tom Redd]

Pat, very good eyes! Like the freckles.

[Kerry Perkins]

Hi Pat, love the stare and those eyes! Feels a little tight in frame to me. On my monitor I'm reading a slight color cast also. Freckles is a great name...

[pat lillich]

hey guys, thank you for looking, and for the gentle introduction to the Avian critique forum. I will definitely try a re-process and see if I can get rid of the color cast - and try Artie's suggestion on the whites. Sid - I wish I had thought to focus out and take another picture - you are right, that would have worked well. Clemens and Kerry , there is a bit more canvas up top. I'll see how a more vertical crop looks with more space around it. thanks Tom! and thank you Alan for booting me into taking the pic and posting it.

[Tim Munsey]

Works for me, good to have a slightly different shot.

Tim

[Daniel Cadieux]

Quite the staring contest! Great job on focusing on the eyes. With such a close image I'm OK with the OOF bill but I can see why some would prefer it sharp too. I agree with more room above, and where Artie sees a blue cast (I'm seeing it too) I'm also seeing some magenta on the plumage.

Thanks for participating in the theme!!