Red Grouse

[Richard Greenwood]

My first offering for feedback.

Taken locally to me earlier in the week with my 450D & Tokina 80-400mm zoom. Cropped & applied some sharpening, but no other major alterations done.


Red Grouse by Richard Greenwood, on Flickr

Exif - 380mm zoom, F5.6 +1/3, 1/500, 400 ISO

Comments appreciated.

Richard

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Richard, these birds are good fun to photograph and can be quite feisty at times, one had a go at the car!

Looking at it, the light looks quite harsh as the detail and depth of colour in the 'eyebrows' is a little washout, try early in the morning or towards late afternoon to avoid that 'strong sun' we get However, I do like the head angle, popping out of the heather and there is detail in the eye & beak, but you could try adjusting the exposure in PS, just dropping it a bit, as the colour & the depth of the image then comes through IMHO.

I think also you could afford to adjust the crop, so you have say a third less on the RHS & the same at the foot of the image, allowing more to the left for the bird to look into and above, but try to avoid heavy crops as this reduces the image quality. If you are patient these birds do come very close at times.

Try to get them on the dry stone walls or on a stone so you get more of the bird and those great white bootie legs.

I am sure you will get more feedback & help, just though I would add my bit as I am heading up your way on Saturday.

TFS
Steve

[Richard Greenwood]

Thanks for your comments Steve, they all help!!

I'm still trying to get my head around Photoshop (I have Elements 8) & get a good post-processing workflow into place. Hopefully when I can save up enough I'm going to upgrade to the full version plus Lightroom as I can get these on academic licences through my wife.

You should have some good stuff on Saturday, there's plenty about at the moment especially the grouse plus when we were on the moors on Monday there are loads of Meadow Pipits & Curlews around. I have also heard reports of Ring Ouzels as well on Ilkley Moor.

Are you local to me then? Perhaps if you didn't mind we could maybe meet up at some point in the future? (Saturday's out as we've organised a street party tomorrow (to celebrate something or other that's happening over here) so I may be suffering a little!!)

Thanks again,

Richard

[Kerry Perkins]

Hello Richard and welcome to ETL. We look forward to seeing more of your images.

Would love to see this image larger, you can post up to 1024 wide and 800 high on this forum, and a larger image would help us see your details. Good comments above by Steve, must reiterate that the harsh sun makes for very contrasty images. The foliage would not be nearly as distracting if there were more of the bird visible. Learn to "work the bird" and wait for the best opportunities! Keep them coming!

[John Chardine]

Hi Richard- Sure would be nice to see a bigger version of this image! I like the bird peering our of the heather. Great eye contact and nice and sharp. Above suggestions for crops are good. Look forward to seeing more birds from the moors!