Tasty Apples

[john crookes]

Another Bohemian Waxwing from last Friday just as the weather started to change to rain

Nikon D3
600mm
1.4 ext
1/350th
F 9.5
ISO 400
Fill Flash with Better Beamer set to TTL FP

[Harold Davis]

that's a beauty john!! are those breeding colors? didnt realize they were that dark!!

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hi John,
Woudl have preferred more room right......as the bird is looking that way...but you might achieve the same result with a CW rotation and then cropping from bottom and left. Everything is is right on!
Roman

[Jim Poor]

Really nice. I have yet to see a waxwing at all. Just a couple stray stems here and there to deal with.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Great moment, setting and BG. I might decrease the color temperature a bit and put the bird further to the left in the frame.

[john crookes]

It was dark and threating to pour just as I photograph this one

ten seconds later and i was soaked

hence the warm colors and increased sat

this is full frame and no more room on the right and i like the way the branch sweeps down through the frame and the effect of the bg as is

a natural gradient so to speak but to each his own :)

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I just played with it in PS and it looks best on my monitor with saturation decreased 15 points. This way the spike on the left in the histogram is gone, too.

[Francis Bossé]

John, I think if you add put the more left would had help the composition... The sharpness and the action are great in this image!

[john crookes]

The spike you speak of at the left is a result of converting to srgb if you look at the image as a pro photo color space you will also note that the spike is gone.

I understand what you are trying to convey Axel but the image as I posted best reflects the found situation as i Photographed the subjet

as I said there was a dark ominous cloud approaching from the west and over us but the light was still coming from the east and the birds were positively glowing

thanks for all of the imput

[Todd Frost]

Nice image John. I prefer your original post. Sometimes it seems that we try to make every species look to generic and remove the particular effects caused by the light at capture. I haven't got to capture one of these yet but I did have fun with some Cedars a couple of months ago. Sweet image and light!

Todd