Its a bird, its a plane, its...most likely a bird!

[Luis Gonzalez Jr]

Hello Everyone,

This is one of my more favorite shots from my trip to the Los Angeles Arboretum :) Honestly I'm not familiar with birds so much to know what kind this is, so instead of making up some funny name (which most have) I'll let the professionals name this one for me
This was taken with my Pentax K10D f5.8 1/750 ISO-400 75-300mm @300mm AF-S HH, quite a big crop, TRIED a Topaz NR but don't know how I did, also TRIED cloning out some of the "leaves" or whatever this plant has! C&C welcomed and greatly appreciated!

[Kerry Perkins]

Hi Luis, I'm thinking bird here too! A Northern Mockingbird to be precise... Good job on the capture, you are a little over on the exposure - maybe 1/3 stop less for the whites which are a little toasty. Ideal situation is with the sun behind you, so that your subject is evenly illuminated. Looks like the sun was off to your right, which makes for mixed light on the bird. As a result, the eye and most of the body are in shadow. On the plus side, you got a nice portrait and eye contact. I think this bird is sitting on some aloe vera, which could be cropped and cloned to make a cleaner image. It looks like you applied the noise reduction to the whole image, which results in some loss of detail on the bird. Better to select the subject then make new layers with only the bird and only the background. Then you can sharpen the bird and soften the background. Good job on the capture! Glad you liked the arboretum, it's one of my favorite places to photograph.