Shot at the Dallas zoo. I was about 10 feet away with my 300mm zoom. I cloned out the fence in front of the bird and sharpened and dodged around the eyes and changed the eye color from the dark to light that you see here. Crop is full frame except for 8x10 ratio.
The original image I started with is linked to in my comment below.
Statistics
Place: 1 out of 193 Avg (all users): 7.5000 Avg (commenters): 8.3846 Avg (participants): 7.5952 Avg (non-participants): 7.3571 Views since voting: 9673 Votes: 210 Comments: 64 Favorites: 15 (view)
Congrats on a WELL deserved win. This being a open challenge and photos taken from around the world. Most having more time to spend on the challenge than you have...more so lately. This is saying alot about your talent ! This is a amazing, awesome photo.
Congrats on the blue ribbon for this challenge :) I think winning this challenge is a major accomplishment. You were up against a lot of good photos and the photographers had a lot more time to prepare for this one. The uniqueness of this bird and your talent with the camera have certainly come together well in this image. I look forward to seeing a lot more of your stuff on the front page this year :)
Congratulations! Yours was the only one of my personal top 3 to actually finish there.
Your win is particularly satisfying because spot editing out the cage was instrumental to your victory. This is proof that the new rules work to make an image the "best it can" be without destroying the original photograph's integrity.
holy cow, great post processing work! Really jealous (in a good way) of both your foto taking skills & editing skills! Congrats on a very well deserved ribbon!
Thanks for all the great comments. The eye was changed back from the blue that I mentioned in the comments.
For all of you who fear photoshop making digiart, here is the original file I started with:
I spent over 2 hours perfecting this shot so it could be what you see here. Cloning, dodging, burning, healing brush, sharpening actions... all tools that help take this from my trash bin, to the frontpage.
You've done a great job capturing the soft textures of the birds feathers as well as a sharp beak and eyes. I don't know the birds colors; it seems a little limited in color range, but that might be the scene.
Now that's an interesting bird.... I like the composition and the levels are good. This is the best bird head shot I've seen in a while here. Good job! 9
Nice portrait and a good capture on the expression. Excellent clarity. What type of bird is it? I was wondering if a wider crop would make him stand out more.
I just cannot get over the incredible detail in this shot. Perfect dof, wondeful lighting, and have to admit I am so curious as to how you got this amazing bird to sit and pose for you! This shot is definitely one of my favorites in the challenge.
Somehow this bird looks like it is pissed off about something. :)
Good focus on the eye, good use of aperture/ shallow dof, like the toning balance and composition. 8
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