From a recent trip to Sedona, Arizona, taken in Coconino National Forest - not easy to capture this quick little bird! Thank you in advance for any C&C, I appreciate it very much.

Canon 7D
EF 70 - 200 f/2.8L IS II USM w/ 1.4x Extender II
ISO 400
f/5 1/3200
Handheld / No Flash

Excellent! Its not just an "I managed to snap it" photo, its competition class. Its got an excellent pose, composition, lighting, flow and detail. The only thing I might do is a little bit of vignette, and possibly get rid of that 1 needle that is horizontal. Its sorta disruptive to the flow of the image.

I had a look at your bird gallery, and to me this is definitely in the top 3. For competition, it may even be the strongest.

Beautiful capture, well done

Originally Posted by Overfocused Excellent! Its not just an "I managed to snap it" photo, its competition class. Its got an excellent pose, composition, lighting, flow and detail. The only thing I might do is a little bit of vignette, and possibly get rid of that 1 needle that is horizontal. Its sorta disruptive to the flow of the image. I had a look at your bird gallery, and to me this is definitely in the top 3. For competition, it may even be the strongest.

Thank you for your comments and for the excellent point on the 1 horizontal needle - a good call. I'd be curious which other images from my gallery you think are strongest?

28, 29, 32, 48 and 52 are what impact me the most. For me personally, I think of them this way:

28 and 29 are really strong in terms of the birds characters, although I think the eye is a bit dark in 28 and could use dodging or selective exposure or whatever you'd do, and 29 might benefit from a little cropping and shifting the bird toward the left of the frame. I think the composition and overall ambiance of 32 is fantastic for an art gallery or someone hanging it in their home, but not really a competition. Judges would probably be picky that the bird isn't looking straight at the camera or that shadow on the chest. Personally not 1 atom of my being is bothered by that stuff, but I know judges who might say otherwise, lol. 48 has a great balance of both character and composition of the surrounding environment, and the lighting is perfect. 52 is all of these things, and has an even better pose and flow of composition. I'd say 48 and 52 have the strongest mixture of everything together and I see them as the images with the most depth and photographic quality behind them. 48 could use a tighter 3:2 ratio crop coming from the edge of the leaves on the bottom left. I think removing the extra space would go a long way. Just set the marquee in photoshop to 3:2 and drag it as far as you can go to the right :)

And of course, these are all just suggestions and all up to you. Just my 10 cents (2 cents per picture, lol)

Yes, nice job - and judging by the kit used (assuming not cropped) you must've been relatively close?

In addition to the LHS needle already mentioned, if mine, I'd consider trying a crop just above small (cone tip?) at the bottom of frame and to the right of the cone combo in bottom right corner. This'd put the bird's tail a more into the top left corner and de- centralise the pic a bit more.

For me, that lighter cone mass in bottom right is ideally what I'd prefer to not be in frame - having 2 areas of lighter foreground is pulling my eye more than I'd like - even tho' it's natural veg.

Also had a quick look at other pics - have you considered getting closer to ground /water level with shots where appropriate?

(Again, only comments from my biased pov ... mrs pp usually ignores them too :) )

pp

Quite a wonderful shot.
My taste? I disagree with "Puzzled" about the little cones. I think they visually cradle the bird. IMO they add to, rather than distract from, the shot.

Really nicely done especially considering the gear you used. Regarding C/C, I'm not a fan of such a centered composition. But the position of the bird with its tail up kind of has you boxed in. You might play around with an 8x10 or square format to test some different compositions. Anyway, I only offer those nits at your request. It is a lovely image as is.

Excellent image, well exposed with good details. The BG is nicely defocused. The comp is to centered for my taste and the shutter speed of 1/3200 was more than you needed. You could have dropped the ISO and still maintained a fast enough shutter speed for the capture. All in all excellent work.

Originally Posted by Overfocused 28, 29, 32, 48 and 52 are what impact me the most. For me personally, I think of them this way: 28 and 29 are really strong in terms of the birds characters, although I think the eye is a bit dark in 28 and could use dodging or selective exposure or whatever you'd do, and 29 might benefit from a little cropping and shifting the bird toward the left of the frame. I think the composition and overall ambiance of 32 is fantastic for an art gallery or someone hanging it in their home, but not really a competition. Judges would probably be picky that the bird isn't looking straight at the camera or that shadow on the chest. Personally not 1 atom of my being is bothered by that stuff, but I know judges who might say otherwise, lol. 48 has a great balance of both character and composition of the surrounding environment, and the lighting is perfect. 52 is all of these things, and has an even better pose and flow of composition. I'd say 48 and 52 have the strongest mixture of everything together and I see them as the images with the most depth and photographic quality behind them. 48 could use a tighter 3:2 ratio crop coming from the edge of the leaves on the bottom left. I think removing the extra space would go a long way. Just set the marquee in photoshop to 3:2 and drag it as far as you can go to the right :) And of course, these are all just suggestions and all up to you. Just my 10 cents (2 cents per picture, lol)

Thank you very much for the detailed comments and feedback! I will have to spend some time in Photoshop soon playing around with your suggestions, I'm always on the lookout for ways to improve my images.

Thanks to Puzzled, Icebear, Northern and Harry for the C&C - much appreciated!

Puzzled - Yes, did manage to get pretty close (or rather it got close to where I was waiting) - patience is a virtue when shooting with my kit!

I was struggling with that cone tip you noticed, as I wanted to keep the connection point of the two yellow spurs to the right of the isolated tip and maintain the framing that Icebear mentioned. Some interesting comp suggestions all around - I'll have to play with it some more. Thanks again!