Cape Robin-chat

[Nancy Bell]

I photographed this bird in Cape Town, South Africa in Sept. 2007. I used the Canon 20D, Canon 300 f4 L IS lens, ISO 400, f5, ISO 400.

I never had a chance to process the photos from this trip and now I'm having a lot of fun going through them.

C & C most appreciated.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Nancy, I like the diagonal perch, and the robin has posed for you nicely. The light looks soft and you have exposed the colours on the robin very well. Comp wise, I find the OOF tree trunk on the right distracting, so cropping in from the right will take of that.

[Mital Patel]

nancy surely a nice frame. i see a bit of halo around bird and perch. and yes agree with stu on cropping suggestion i felt that too.

[Mark Itol]

Gorgeous image. I like the light and colors here. I'd prefer the bird to be off-center or maybe try a vertical crop.

[john jackson]

Love the bird and its pose and love the impressionist-style OOF leaves in the background. I think this is an image with real promise, but ...

I think you have overdone the shadow recovery. Reducing this would restore a bit of contrast, bring out the dappling of the light and shadow and remove the halos that Mital pointed out. The light hits the bird's face/eye nicely and I think this would add drama in the picture that is missing due to the flat tones.

I would crop a slice off the top (starting just under that triple branch in the top left corner) to give a wide format. With the distracting knot of branches gone, the stems on the right would blend in just fine with the rest of that lovely background and give a nicely balanced and dynamic composition. The central position would also be fine as the bird is near vertical.

Sometimes I wonder why we are all so keen to upgrade our cameras when I see an image as good as this from a 20D.

[Nancy Bell]

Thank you all for your suggestions. I see how a crop from the right and the top would help the compostion. John, you are correct that I worked on the shadow recovery, and I see now how I did lose some contrast. I'll rework the image with this good advice.

[Sachin Saraf]

Nancy this is a nice capture...I agree with cropping suggestions from Stu and yes some selective contrast boost can definitely help... I am looking forward for the re worked version :-)

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

Really nice Nancy. Love the dof and great colors. I also like the great framing from the greens.

[john jackson]

Thank you all for your suggestions. I see how a crop from the right and the top would help the compostion. John, you are correct that I worked on the shadow recovery, and I see now how I did lose some contrast. I'll rework the image with this good advice.

I hope you post it!