Red-winged Blackbird and Alternate Version and yet another

Original Version:

With Hand Drawn White Vignette:

With Elliptical Selection-100 pixel feather:

Critique Style Requested: Standard

The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.

Description

It’s been a busy couple of weeks and I haven’t gotten out to shoot lately, so I dug back into the early part of the year-late January in this case.

Specific Feedback

I cloned over some near foreground cattails in this one while trying to maintain the feel of an out of focus cattail marsh-hopefully that was successful. Looking at this now, I’m wondering if a bit of white vignette would work?

Technical Details

Sony A1, FE 200-600 + 1.4 TC @ 840 mm, beanbag on car window, f/9, 1/1000, iso 3200. Preprocessing in DxO PureRaw 4, cropping and cloning in PS. I used a darks 4 mask to bring up the darkest black areas a bit and the point color adjustment in LR to boost the yellow in the plumage. Cropped to 3306x4440. Taken January 29th @ 10:10 a.m.


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1 Like

Nice capture, the sharpness and detail is wonderful, I love the bits of vegetation in his beak. I think the version without the vignette works well, it’s blurred but still gives some context to the subject. Nice light as well.

1 Like

The light and detail in this is great Dennis. I actually love the vignette in the second image here. It gives a nice misty and dreamy impression to the overall composition. Nicely done.

Lovely capture! I could go with either version but the light vignette seems to have lightened the bird also, with lower contrast. Mask that center area out and I love both equally. The perch is wonderful and you have preserved a perfect hint of the environment. I love the way the perch is lighter at the bottom! It looks like a very classy bird illustration.

I agree with @Diane_Miller and @Ed_Williams and their comments. Both versions are wonderful, but love the lighter appearance of the second.

Hi Dennis
I going with number one. You did a good job with the black and framing.
Peter

Hi Dennis, great composition, details, and exposure. I prefer the original version. Well done.

Go with the middle version–looks artistic and not overly contrived. Comp and colors are spot on. Redwings always make worthy subjects…Jim