House Finch
by Patrick O'Healy
This House Finch photo was taken January 29, 2012 at San Joaquin Wildlife Preserve in Irvine, CA.
Nikon D300 200-400mm lens taken at 400mm from 10 meters
f/4 1/2500 ISO320 manual exposure auto white balance
cropped to 25%
This House Finch was in bushes at the side of the pond by the parking lot. He moved from bush to bush eating the seeds from the withered flowers in the photo. I was grateful that he allowed me to take several shots and eventually moved to this bush where he was in a position where the pond was in the background. I sat low and positioned this shot to show the lake behind him. All the blue in the background is the lake. While the shot would have been better if his head had been turned less, I really like the artistic quality.
Comments and feedback welcome.
Comments
4 commentsYou might want to lighten just the bird a bit. I love the head turn. Was this hand held or shot from a tripod? It's a little bit soft. On a shot like this I find that I TEND to prefer more room on the side in the direction in which the bird is looking and not the side his body is facing. It can certainly be comped either way but I might crop from the right side and add more to the left but it's just a thought. I'm also thinking there might be a bit too much room at the top with nothing going on. This also is just a suggestion but I might move the bird towards the top right part of the image so there is more room at the bottom left where you have the nice colored perch coming into the frame. Hope you get some good ones today Patrick.
This is a reworked iteration with the changes you suggested. Thank you for your great comments. The original shot was less than 25% of the full frame.