Carrion Crow (Corvus corone)

[Jonathan Ashton]

• Jon Ashton
• Jon Ashton
• Adobe Photoshop Camera Raw 16.5 (Windows)

Hand held image, minor crop.

OM-1OLYMPUS M.150-400mm F4.5
Focal Length (35 mm conversion) : 612.0mm
ISO Sensitivity : 4000
Shutter : 1/800 sec
F.No. : F5.6
Exposure compensation : 0.0 EV

ACR/PSCC

 

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Jon, colour looks better, but the NR has soothed out things again, but for me, the balance in frame isn't working, too much dead space and not enough below. The peeling bark on the LHS is a bit unfortunate????

TFS
Steve

 

[Dave Pastern]

the image looks a tiny bit smooth to my eyes, but not badly so. I can live with it quite happily as is.

I do agree with Steve on the framing/negative space though.

I'm on the fence about the peeling bark.

Beautiful bird though and you captured those Blue/Black tones really nicely imho. Nice soft lighting in this too, good pose from the bird and nice eye contact.

Perhaps a crop from this might help with the negative space/framing?

Dave

 

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Jon ... the Crow gave you a good pose and perfect HA .
I would agree with Steve and Dave about the smoothness , just a touch too strong use of NR . Composition is borderline of being ok ... needs more blow IMHO . I do like the foliage on RHS to fill the frame . Overall tones looking great ... but would push the plumage darker to some degree . Perch looks good including the peeled bark :t3. The Crow does look very good in the head area
As an alternative in color ... I can see a versions with the BG greens/yellows changed to touch more coolness ( but not globally )

Overall a nice solid frame

TFS Andreas

 

[Brian Sump]

Jon, although the feathers do look a touch smooth I will say you did a beautiful job teasing out details in this dark bird. Nice richness in tones and even some of the iridescence shining through.

Subject really pops comes through nicely off of the backdrop.

I like your choice of comp left to right anyway with the leaves introduced at right and the crow looking the opposite way.

Very nice details in the tree limb too. Moving the subject and limb a touch higher in-frame would benefit IMO.

 

[Jonathan Ashton]

Thanks everyone for your comments, I looked at the image composition when I took the shot, it wasn't perfect but I thought OK - there were other distracting elements around.. I could have recomposed and cropped but thought I would leave as is, something in my mind pops up every now and then prompting me not to make the images too "chocolate box cover" style - ie too ideal - I sometimes feel perfectly composed images tend to become rather anticipated. I have looked again and agree I could have used a little less NR...... something to keep an eye on I think I have been a little excessive at times. I'll bare in mid selective colour adjustment Andreas.

 

[William Dickson]

Very nice Jon. Not an easy bird to expose for. I would add a wee bit contrast to the wing feathers, add a little sharpness and IMO it would make the bird pop more. I think the branches add.

Will