A simple, gentle mockingbird

[Jack Breakfast]

Greetings folks! I'll welcome your opinions and comments and suggestions regarding this picture, which was taken with the Canon 7D and 200mm f2.8 and 1.4 extender. iso250, 1/1250, f4.5. I did some cloning here, a first for me. I mean to say that I removed something somewhat large from the image, which I never did before. There was another piece of sumach in the lower left. I think i did a good job but i use a small-size laptop and wonder if perhaps I'm missing something. I'd sincerely appreciate some comments in that department. Otherwise, I tweaked the levels and cropped slightly, USM. Many thanks for your consideration...

[arash_hazeghi]

nice pose and good perch, sharp. I'd de-sat the sky a bit to focus attention on the bird. wish you were just a bit higher for slightly better HA. good work

[Daniel Cadieux]

Good cloning work Jack. You chose a perfect image to start experimenting with this tool as the background is very simple to work with here. Good techs, good details. I wish the angle to the subject wasn't as steep, and I agree with Arash that the sky is too vivid - easy fix by simply desaturating the blue and/or cyan channels in photoshop (not much needed).

[Jack Breakfast]

Thanks, gents, glad to hear from you. The angle isn't so steep that I'd lose the shot, but as I climbed the hill and approached the mockingbird, the sumach became increasingly cluttered and although eventually I was almost eye-to-eye with the bird, there were no good pictures to be had. Interesting comments RE the sky as well. Will certainly look into that. Daniel: thanks for the how-to, it's appreciated.

[gail bisson]

Hi Jack,
Lovely bird. Excellent job with the cloning. Ditto what Arash and Daniel said. Did you climb the sumac tree to get this or a hill?!!

[Jonathan Ashton]

Jack its a peach but I agree about the the background - a little too vivid for me.

[Jack Breakfast]

Have been enjoying J. Ashton's language for some time now...