Flycatcher

Gallery: Photo ArtPosted February 16, 201398 views3 comments

I have a terrific spot I like to go each Spring to watch willow flycatchers. Because I have been going there for a few years now, I have a lot of photos... This shot had a blown out sky so I was playing around with filters and ended up with this pretty pastel background. I like to manipulate and exaggerated my colors quite a bit on some of my shots, so I hope to share more with this group. Comments and suggestions most welcome!

Canon Rebel XTi
Sigma 70-300mm f/4-5.6 DG APO Macro Telephoto @ 300mm
1/400 at f/7.1
ISO 400
Nik Color Efex 4 (pastel and some other filters)
Smith Lake, Aug 2010

Comments

3 comments

Comment posted by Barb Pflaum on February 18, 2013 at 12:48 PM

Nice image of this bird. I like the color you added to the background. To me the large light green out of focus leaf on the right hand side is a distraction. You might want to try cloning it out or just croping that side of the image right where the light green leaf starts.

Registered on January 14, 2009, 316 Posts, 2724 Comments

Comment posted by Jess Williams on February 20, 2013 at 6:24 PM

Hi Barb,

Thanks for the suggestion! I always struggle with scenes like this. If I'm not careful, I'll end up cropping all the twigs out! :) I've also thought about a vertical crop. Thanks for looking.

Registered on February 15, 2013, 17 Posts, 53 Comments

Comment posted by Karen Kane on February 21, 2013 at 2:47 PM

Hi Jess,

LOVE the way the background turned out!!!!

As you mentioned - I would absolutely go with the vertical crop, and would probably use the following boundaries: either from the left edge of frame (or maybe from inside the bright twig at bottom left so that distraction is gone) to a little before where the red twig runs out of frame at the bottom center. I think this would help bring the focal-point of your image right to the bird and also the bird would be looking "into" the image, instead of out, like it is as shown.

Overall - a really nice image of the bird itself - glad you have such a terrific spot to go

Registered on August 4, 2012, 66 Posts, 726 Comments