The photographer is looking for thoughtful feedback on the image as a whole, especially around the areas noted below.
Feedback Focus: Artistic + Technical
About This Image
A few days ago we had large numbers of juvenile goldfinches in the Echinacea. Now, they’re pretty much gone. I did manage to get some time with this bird before it decided to move on. The birding gurus insist that they’ll overwinter in this area, but I’ve never seen one and we have a lot of them in the summer.
Feedback Requested
This was taking relatively early in the morning, but it was clear and the sun was already pretty bright. I spent a fair amount of time trying to alleviate the harshness and hopefully it was reasonably successful. Most of the frames I got, the bird’s mouthful was pretty messy and I chose this one because it was obvious it had found something, but it’s nice and compact. Does that part work? I also deliberately left in an array of the echinacea heads to give a feel for the garden area.
Technical Details
Camera: SONY ILCE-1
Lens: FE 200-600mm F5.6-6.3 G OSS + 1.4X Teleconverter
Focal length: 840mm
Shutter speed: 1/2000s
Aperture: f/9
ISO: 1600
I’m very envious, Dennis. My kind of shot. It’s both a great behavioral and environmental shot. Excellent composition with a great background. Nice light as well. Maybe you’re too far north. I do see some in the winter months, though the Lesser Goldfinch is more prevalent..
So much to like about this one. The light is beautiful lighting both the bird and the flower heads. The colors are all complimentary with the golden earth tones and the pale green in the bg. And then there’s the story, the environment that is captured so beautifully. I sense pending “action.”
Maybe it’s me, butthe bird seems ever so slightly soft, most notably picked up around the eye and head feathers. It doesn’t change the empact or impact of this lovely photo
Thanks Lon. I noticed the face when I was culling, but the catch light was nice and sharp and the face looked the same in every frame. I think it’s just the nature of the feathers, though I could try playing with that area a bit.
The head is slightly soft, only visible when examining the larger versions. I like the comp with the bird munching away on the seeds. In our yard, they go after Tithonia, Silphium, and sunflower seeds. Well done with the difficult lighting…Jim
Dennis: As you know I’m not a bird guy but I do like this a lot for the subject, light and color palette. The only thing about the overall image is the OOF flower head in the LLC. The two real soft heads don’t bug me that much. OTOH, the clarity of the dead head on the right edge suits me fine, maybe just a pinch more room there. This really says “Autumn” to me and I hope these little beauties stick around for you. >=))>
This is such a beautiful image. The soft gold and green background is especially lovely and really sets off the bird and the echinacea. I think the bit of plant material in the bird’s mouth works very well—it adds interest and gives a nice sense of what the bird is doing. I also like having the different echinacea heads included, since they give the image a real sense of the garden environment. One small thing I noticed is that the plant on the far right is just slightly cut off. Do you have a little more room in the original frame? Overall, though, this is a really lovely, engaging image with a wonderful natural feel.
Lovely setting for this image Dennis. Love the soft multi-colored background and all the spent flowerheads. Bird is greatly positioned. I do see the softness that Jim mentions but this is still a fine capture.
No., I didn’t try to sharpen the head. I sometimes increase microcontrast, but almost never use sharpening. I don’t believe the head is really soft, I think it just has very fluffy feathers there since I took quite a few images and no matter how sharp the eye was the side of the face looked soft.
