Evening Grosbeak

I took this shot in Algonquin Park, Canada. It was from a set-up perch stuck into a snowbank at the end of a road in a shaded area. Seed was used to attract birds.

Canon 7d, 500f4, tripod/wimberley head, no flash
1/400 f5.6 ISO400

One round of sharpening was done in Canon Digital Photo Pro and cropping to vertical from horizontal in Photoshop CS4

Beautiful bird and capture...love that perch and composition..Excellent.

Wonderful pose and background. Interesting perch. The snow on the beak tip is frosting on the cake!

very nice image,nice pose and perch,like the BG.well done.

Welcome to BPN! Great post. I like the perch with the moss. Nice moody BG and good IQ. I like the snow on the beak,
Gail

A big welcome to BPN Mike, and hope you enjoy your stay. Super pose, on a great lichen covered perch. Lovely yellows and blacks on this species, but I feel the grosbeak is a touch under exposed. Since this is a set up, could you move the perch to create a more uniform BG.

Hi and welcome. I like the pose here and the really cool diagonal perch.

Wonderful shot. I really like the pose, great perch, and great comp.
Well done.

Great image Mike! I like the pose, perch and BG. I would clone out the moss in the LLC that is not attached to the perch.

Thanks everyone for the compliments and criticism. Stuart, I don't think I could have moved the perch in this case. Another photographer had set up the perch in an area of the park where many people feed the birds. If I moved the perch far I would have risked losing the birds (this is a first for me to get decent shots of this species). The spot where the setup was had a cedar background in almost every angle, there was fresh snow sitting on the boughs and were causing drastic highlights in the background. As it was, to get the background I had, I had my tripod stuck in a snowbank and one knee up on the snow as well. There were also 5 other photographers that may have objected as well. Thank you though for the critique.

Jim I noticed the little spot after I was done cropping it but decided to leave it to see if anyone else noticed it. I entered this photo in a competition locally through a photo club I belong to, I'll have to check if that crop included this little spot as well.