Sacred Kingfisher question

[Mark L]

The first two are the same photo and I'm not sure which I prefer, so what do you think? (it's hard to offend me, so you can say they are both crap )
Thought I'd put "question" in the thread title to see if some that don't generally say anything might.

Camera

Camera

Canon EOS 60D

Focal Length

400mm

Aperture

f/8

Exposure

1/1250s

ISO

800

All a bit of a yawn really

Camera

Canon EOS 60D

Focal Length

400mm

Aperture

f/8

Exposure

1/640s

ISO

800

[Ironwood]

Personally, I like the uncluttered look of the second image. Though I typically take and post photos more like the first one , because the bird is always in amongst the bushes, and I don't have software that can easily remove the unwanted branches.

[Mark L]

Thanks Ironwood. That's a good summation.
I'm not that good at PPing. Sounds like where I started.

[P Plates]

I too prefer the uncluttered version but would crop some off the top to get rid of that bright part of the branch top left. There is also a halo on the left side of the large branch and on parts of the bird - talons and underside of beak. Parts of the bird look a bit smudgy (for want of a better word), maybe from the selection process. I always find selecting birds very difficult which is why I rarely try

[Mark L]

Thanks Glenda.
Agree about the crop.
Now that you mention the haloing it seems to be evident in the original photo (which the bird wasn't selected in) and accentuated in the cloned photo (haloing is
also on the the left side of the branch the kingfisher is perched on).
So that may be down to the original PPing.

[QUOTE=P Plates;n414257]Parts of the bird look a bit smudgy (for want of a better word), maybe from the selection process. /QUOTE]

Is that in both of the first two photos??
My sister used to have a dog called Smudge. no one ever called her smudgy and I'm not sure what that means.

[P Plates]

Looking more closely at the original I think the smudgy parts are remnants of the dark blurred branch behind the birds back. You're right about the haloing - possibly from sharpening which I often don't see on my computer screen but can show up on the forum.