American Goldfinch

Like the color, the composition, the sharp eyes and the details of feathers. BG is very enhancing. Tail feathers are soft. Very good rendering. A smaller aperture than F4.0 would give you more DOF. Regards, ifti.

Wonderful vivid color. Ready to jump on its prey. Its nails are too long. So it should cut them.. I think you captured it in a hurry;because I dont know whether you intended such a DOF; its beak is very sharp, but not the tail.

Wish you, so much light for your captures. Regards.. HK

I like the shot very much. One of the things I see in this is the way little things in the shot make it feel more than 2D: the sharpness of the claws over the branch and the bits of twig protruding. The soft tail actually adds to the reality of dimention as opposed to a flat 2D painting. Even the texture on the branch adds to the feeling of depth.

PDE

Excellent shot!

Beautiful capture and presentation.

I have to wonder if this was hand held (the camera, or course :-) and, if so, if the 1/125th shutter speed was a bit too slow making the image a tiny bit soft.

Thanks to all for your comments.  It was shot on a tripod at dusk, pretty dark.  I shot at F4, wide open with the teleconverter, so I could get the max shutter speed without going above 800 ISO. Which was unfortunately only 1/125 sec.  I would have preferred to have the tail in focus as mentioned ... Ray.