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Bluethroat (again;) (1 Viewer)

kuzeycem

Medicinal Birding
Turkey
So due to the negative 8-P feedback I got on my last post, I decided to go today to my local patch to find some migrating Bluethroats. Quickly found this what seems to be a first-winter male. It was confiding so I had a good time with it.
The photo was taken while sitting on the ground, about 5 meters away from the bird.
EXIF:
Body: Canon EOS 7D
Lens: Canon EF 400mm f5,6
ISO: 500
Shutter Speed: 1/1600
F-number: 7,1
EV: -1

The image is HD, which means Birdforum automatically compresses it. So the image may seem more sharp than it actually is.

To be honest the only two things bothering me about this image is the background and that reed that comes from above the frame.

Thank you for your honest and constructive critiques.
 

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Good pose, breast colours, detail, and composition. I think the image would be worth spending some time on, although there's only so much you can do with those bright reed stems. I'd probably try and darken them a bit And the grass stem is easy enough to remove:

Here's a quick two minute edit with CS2 (old version of Photoshop) to remove the stem and reduce the brightness of the reed stems a bit. The stem tight to the bird and the one bottom left will need more work. I'm sure you'll do much better with the original higher resolution image.

If it was my image, I'd probably just clone out the grass stem and darken the reed stems a bit. One day a Bluethroat will pose in the perfect setting and against a perfect background... trying to capture that image is what makes Photography interesting and addictive (and frustrating);)
 

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I agree with ChrisKten's comments; The read that's just behind the bird, and the piece of grass that's in focus distract from the bird.

But with nature photography those are sometimes the cards one is dealt - it isn't always possible to move to change the background, and personally I'm very bad about noticing bits of distracting background when I'm taking photos. I wonder whether a good strategy to try is the following: when there's a subject that stays for a while, try to just slightly change your angle to it in case of distracting background stuff.

The bird is very sharp (but looks oversharpened in the compressed version), It nicely catches the sun and I think the colours are lovely.

Andrea
 
Thank you both. I refrained from removing the stem because I don't think that would reflect the true nature of the shot. But I do agree with the reed part.
Hope to be back with the perfect shot ;)
 
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