Anna on a stick.

[dankearl]

1/125
f6.3
400mm
iso400
No flash, natural light and natural perch.
Removed a couple of branches.

[Jeff Cashdollar]

What kit was used. Love the detail for 1/125. You could use healing brush with content-aware (CS5) and/or clone brush to continue to work on the branch. As you wish, the bottom left twig. Love the color, might lighten eye area a tad - all subject - well done.

[Cheryl Slechta]

Dan, I love the colors in the Anna and the bg. The twig should be an easy fix.

[Kerry Perkins]

Hi Dan, nice catch of the colorful Anna's. Nice soft light which helped you render the colors so nicely. I would agree with lightening the dark areas of the head a bit. I find the bright area on the right to be a bit much compared to the left half of the image. That part of the perch doesn't really add anything to the image but empty space and I would vote to crop way to the left, making the image into a vertical and putting all the attention on the subject.

[John Chardine]

Dan- This is a pleasing portrait of a great species. The head angle is ideal and I like the perch. I would consider a vertical crop losing a lot from the right and allowing the bird to look into the longer side of the frame. The other reason to do this is that the right hand part of the perch is really competing for your attention but I don't think it adds much to the image. The only other thing I would try is to dodge the subject a little to brighten up the areas in shadow.

[nancy hazen]

Wow, this is very nice! Nice detail. The head colors are nice and are so hard to get. I find I get either blown out or not enough light. Great job here. Great soft bg to balance the vibrant colors too.
Nancy

[dankearl]

Thanks all for the comments, I removed a bunch of twigs and just thought I should stop, although I can see the need to get rid of just a bit more.
The bird is not processed much at all, the beak is OOF and I tried to sharpen to no avail.
The feathers are pretty much out of camera.
I also was surprised at how sharp the 1/125 photo was, just luck, I take a lot of Hummer photos at a lot faster speeds with worse feather detail.
This looks like some I get with a flash but no flash used, an accidental photo really, I was just in the yard with a camera when he flew in.
The color was also pretty much out of camera, just the right sunlight and angle.
The bird was young I think, they don't usually land and perch 10 feet away.
This was one of 10 shots I took while he sat there.