watch the birdie

[gunners67]

Hi i am looking for a little ( or alot ) of critique on this shot. I would like to know your thoughts on the composition and exposure,
Many thanks for your time.



iso-400
f4.0
1/500
200mm
manual mode
spot

[mrteacherdude]

I'm not sure what effect(s) you were going for in the photo, or if you were just getting a shot of the bird. To me the exposure of the bird looks pretty good and it has good detail, but I'm trying not to look at it too critically as I don't have enough experience looking at other people's shots yet to make calls about exposure unless there is something obvious. Overall it looks to me like a very nice capture of the bird in what seems to be less than optimum lighting conditions.

The background is taking something away from the bird though as it is a similar color and tone of the body of the bird and makes it difficult to separate the two (bird and background). I don't imagine there is/was anything you could do about that though when you took the shot. I might be inclined to try lightening the dark portions of the background in post-processing, or lightening (if that's a word) the darker parts of the bird to see if that helps the bird stand out. If this was the effect you were looking for though, it's a success.

I'm also thinking that unless there was a particular reason to include so much of the perch underneath, the photo could benefit from cropping much of that away, which would also help decentralize the bird in the frame and help emphasize the bird. I'm also seeing something "fuzzy" in the background area underneath the perch that for some reason is tending to pull my eyes away from the bird. I'm not sure why and it may just be me, but cropping out much of the perch would remove much of that as well.

A little cropping to the right of the bird would give a little more vertical asymmetry as well and give the appearance of a little more space in the direction of the bird's gaze. It doesn't look like there is a lot of room for cropping on the sides though, so that might put the wing too close to the edge of the frame. Just a thought or two....hopefully not too many.

Did I mention that I think it's a nice capture? I just looked at the version in your Flickr stream and it looks more contrasty and appealing to me than what is showing here. The background still looks a little too similar to the bird, but better than in this post. I'm not sure if it is because your Flickr version is larger, or the white Flickr background is making it appear that way.

[gunners67]

Thanks mrteacherdude this is the sort of critique i was looking for and agree the background does seem to blend in a little with the wings, i think that is something i can change, the fuzzyness below the perch was actually down to poor clone work done in ps,
also something i can fix maybe as you suggested by cropping out the bottom a little.
I have had another look at the pic in flickr and it defo looks better a bit sharper and punchier too.
Many thanks for your time much appreciated