Western Bluebird, female

I put up a Bluebird house this spring and was delighted when a pair of Bluebirds moved in! The last chance I had with them was seven years ago, when I was thrilled to discover a pair nesting in a cavity in an old apple tree . Despite harassment by Acorn Woodpeckers, she is apparently just starting to sit on eggs, and I was able to put up my blind in a good location – in the middle of the driveway… (Fortunately there is a wide turn around there.) And there is good open shade for several hours in the morning.

Specific Feedback Requested

All comments welcome!

Technical Details

Is this a composite: No
Canon R5, Canon EF 600 f/4 II + 2X III, ISO 3200, f/13 (hoping futilely for a bit more DOF), 1/250 sec., sturdy tripod. Eye AF. Shot in vertical format, a bit taken off the bottom and small amounts added to both edges. Only a slight tweak in LR to Highlights, into PS for Topaz DeNoise with its default sharpening.

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I would loosen the crop if you have it… It looks like an Instagram crop which is fine but a 3 x 2 would be nice. Terrific HA and sharp
ness with a nice BG.

A beautiful pose and superb detail, Diane. For my taste it looks maybe a touch over sharpened. I think I agree with Dan on a bit looser composition. The background is lovely.

Thanks @Dan_Kearl and @Dennis_Plank. I was too close for the lens – tomorrow I’ll put on the 1.4X – and had to rotate to a vertical to fit her in well. I already added canvas on both sides. Could do more and possibly find a horizontal that shows more of the perch, but the BG light would be different.

Topaz Denoise didn’t do much sharpening – here’s a 100% look at the raw file – no sharpening or NR. That’s an amazing lens.

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Beautiful pose, background, and detail in this shot Diane. Maybe a little less of a crop would improve. Some Eastern Bluebirds visited my feeder last week but couldn’t get a shot before they were gone. They have quite a bit more blue on their heads and wings, plus a nice brown on their breasts.

Very nice female Bluebird image, the sharpness is awesome , especially on the closeup original you provided. I really don’t have the problem of being too close for the lense on the small song birds. Lvely smooth background colors too.

Nicely captured. Good detail and the colors are very pleasing. I agree to loosen the crop a bit, but that’s easily done and a matter of taste. Well done.

Excellent detail. I really like the pose, depth of field, and background. Yes it could use a little more space but that’s pretty minor. Plumage detail is really amazing. And yes there is a tiny bit of noise in the green area to be expected at ISO 3200 but not enough to be a major issue when looked at at normal size. If you process a really noisy image in Topaz De noise, it tends to do a noticeable job but those images that are not plagued with a lot of noise don’t seem to be affected as much. I do like the slight level of sharpening that this software product applies to many images.