The photographer is looking for thoughtful feedback on the image as a whole, especially around the areas noted below.
Feedback Focus: Artistic / Expressive
About This Image
I recently caught this male anna’s near our hummingbird feeder as he was guarding it. I love seeing their iridescent feathers, and watching for color changes with their slightest movement.
Feedback Requested
Cropping? Exposure?
Technical Details
Z9, 180-600 lens, Nikon 1.4 TC, monopod, 1998 x 2276, f9,1260mm, ISO 5000, cropped to 1998 x 2276.
The crop and exposure look fine to my eye, Dave. The bird looks like it’s nice and sharp, but the angle of the light is kind of concealing the fine feather texture. I don’t know which software you use, but you might look up microcontrast adjustments and boost it a trifle. It’s a great way of accenting feather texture.
Dave, This is so good, the assertive pose and the striking colors contrasting with the rich BG. I just wish for a wee bit more sharpness all round. I sometimes use the rough-and-ready Adjustment Brush in LR, but Dennis’s method would probably work better. This perceived softness (which may be a product of my eyesight early in the morning!) may also be caused by your using the TC. This has happened to me, and I am much more reluctant to use it now. I often find a crop of the shot will show up better sharpness when I don’t use the TC.
Micro-contrast enhancement is fairly easy to do in Photoshop and this might bring out more texture in the feathers. I might be inclined to reduce the saturation of blues and cyan in the BG. The hummingbirds colors are very nice and were captured quite well…Jim
