I liked this mainly for the setting, though I also liked the pose of the sparrow.
Canon 7D II; Sigma 150-600 at 600mm; 1/800 at f6.3; ISO 1000
I like this, Allen. the White-crowned is nice and crisp and I do like the head turn. the setting is also good. I do think I’d do something about the light out of focus spire going up to our right of the bird. I find it rather distracting. My wife heard one of these in a parking lot last week, but we haven’t heard one here yet, and I’m getting antsy. This bird’s song is my spring totem.
Thanks, @Dennis_Plank for your comments. I didn’t like the light spire either and I actually did a fairly large blur on the background to try and mitigate the effect. Further attempts( content-aware, cloning) seemed to make more of a mess. Any thoughts on how to improve this would be appreciated from you or the NPN gang.
Allen, I am not familiar with this sparrow, but he sure is beautiful. I love the head turn on him too, and the nice soft background. I agree with Dennis, that if you can, calming or removing that one spire would be helpful.
thanks, @Shirley_Freeman for commenting. The sparrow can be a winter visitor in your neck of the woods, but perhaps once this mess is over with you can treat yourself to a birding trip out west. I have certainly enjoyed the few times I’ve been to the east coast to see new birds. I was thrilled to see my first cardinal only a few years ago.
So here is an attempt to remove the spire. I did this with a combination of the patch tool, spot healing brush, and healing brush tool. Nothing else. A lot of times I find it’s a crap shoot to use these tools and sometimes it takes trial and error and multiple attempts. I could probably do a better job with more time. With respect to spring migration, I haven’t seen much. I saw single Rufus hummingbird but nothing else. Primarily I am seeing juncos, chickadees, starlings, an occasional nuthatch, and an occasional woodpecker.
Thanks, @David_Schoen, I sure like what you did. I’ll see if I can duplicate it.
Hi Allen. I like the setting and the sparrow’s pose also. David did a good job on the spire. In addition to the tools mentioned, I’d throw in the clone stamp tool. I start working with it at a low opacity, something like 20%, and see how it goes. I change the opacity as I go, depending on what the image needs.
Otherwise, if you’d have taken a half-step to your right, the bird’s legs would be clear of that little branch in front of it. On this image, I’d also try a very light vignette. If not that, I’d burn the bushes in the foreground and see how it looks.
A dandy shot of a white-crowned sparrow. Certainly a sparrow I am constantly on the lookout for. Lots of good suggestions on dealing with that bit of back ground nuisance. I find it is a bit of trial and error. I think David’s repost has just about got it with only a bit of a black line showing.
Nice composition and I like the foliage.
