Eye on the Sparrow

[Dragline]

Please critique my composition and post processing. This is a 100% crop of the original which I have included a link to. Is the composition too centered and/or did I overdo the saturation or sharpness in post processing?

Large Original

Large Critique



Camera: Canon EOS Rebel T1i
Lens: Canon EF 75-300mm 4-5.6 II
Shutter Speed: 1/1600 sec.
Aperture: f/5.6
ISO Speed: 320
Focal Length: 300mm
Post Processing: Canon DPP & Adobe Photoshop CS3

Thanks for any replies!

[jughead]

I think it would be better if you crop the left side and a little of the bottom..
the saturation and sharpness is fine for me,but the face seems out of focus

[Visions]

I am glad that you included a link to the original image - I could see that by changing the way you crop you can get a much better composition. Think of the intercepting lines of the "rule of thirds" and put your bird onto one of those points. Because the bird is looking to the right you need more space on the right hand side. To give the bird a bit of dominance it needs to be higher in the image - so it goes in the top left.
Crop the picture to include a little of another branch in the bottom right hand corner to give a bit of interest and balance.
I do agree, the focus is not quite right, the focus is weak on the bird's head - and the head and eyes should be the main focus point.

[Dragline]

Thank you both for the help. I changed the crop as you suggested and it does look better. I also sharpened the image a bit more and think it helped somewhat with the focus on the head. Changing the crop brought the out of focus roads from the background into the image that I didn't want, so I added some gradients at the top and bottom to cover them up.