Robin Red Breast - C&C for newbie

[agoodey]

Hello all, I would really appreciate some C&C on these couple of pictures. All comments welcomed.

Many Thanks

1.

2.

 

[Pugs]

Very nicely composed photos!

Technical nit-picks:

In the first the eye is not in focus, and the background is looks off color-wise. I love how you caught the bird in a shaft of light, though!

In the second, the bird is underexposed, otherwise a very nice composition.

 

[agoodey]

Thanks for the constructive criticism. Being a newbie I was trying to think of everything to get the shot right but those pesky little buggers didn't want to stay still for too long so I found it hard to get everything right at once!

I'm hoping the more I practice the more these things become second nature and I am able to get the perfect shot quicker.

 

[Natalie]

These are very nice photos! Birds tend to be some of the hardest animals to photograph, so you're off to a good start. As mentioned above, there are some minor focusing issues in the first shot, and I would add that the actual bird looks slightly overexposed (at least on my display).

The second photo is the stronger one, IMO... The bird is in a better pose in a better location, and really the only thing that could use improvement on this photo is the exposure. You can brighten in it Photoshop, and that would probably improve it a great deal.

 

[agoodey]

Thanks Natalie, I have had a play with the shot in photoshop but as with all areas of photography I am still a complete novice so any success is probably more down to luck than judgement

Anyway, I increased the exposure which kind of washed out the background and made it too distracting. So to make the Robin stand out more I did a bit of colour burn, and then tried to desaturate the background to give it less emphasis. I'm not sure if now the image looks a bit too over processed and slightly too washed of colour. What do you think?

I'm sure a more experienced photoshop user could enhance this much better than I currently can!