No pro. No advice. Interesting shot though. I like the contrasts as well as the angle of the shot.

Looks good Sam. I'm not a pro either but you can try this if you have not done so already. Try the self timer when you take the shot especially with your long telephoto lens. This will eliminate all camera shake from pressing the shutter button...may help clear that up;-) Usually it is a 10second self timer. We have a similar bird which is called the Common Magpy.

Looks like the white is a little overexposed and the light reflecting from the white feathers are causing the edge of the black to appear a lighter shade and may be giving the illusion of a blur.

It is just the camera angle or is that bird missing some toes on it's right foot?

It's just the camera angle Piner. I think you're right, probably a result of my fiddling with the settings. I have reset them to the default now so hopefully that will prevent it.

Getting good detail in the black and not overexposing the white can be hard.

Excellent bird, Sam. I think the problem with the white areas comes from some 'purple fringing', perhaps in combination with some blooming. There's really nothing you can do about this, except perhaps expose a little darker next time. I'm not sure if I'm qualified to give you advice, but I always try to underexpose rather than overexpose. It's easier to lighten things in post-processing if they're darker, than to darken if they're lighter, since once the image is white there's no information left in it.

I'd say the only thing you could do to improve the purple fringing as it is is to go in and sharpen the gradient between black and white, say by darkening the purple. (I just now read a forum that says "you can reduce the effect a little by scaling down the Blue color channel of the image")

Thanks Xentrik, I will try that. Piner also suggested I try a UV filter, so I might give that a go too. I think maybe the standard exposure setting might be too high so I will fiddle about and see if I can prevent it from happening in future.

I don't have any advice Tom, I just like the cute bird & good photo! Thank you ! :))

Great shot. I like the glow of the white. Nice work.

Excellent clarity

- for some reason I am reminded of a limerick...

Today as I walked through the park,
I was savagely pecked by a lark
when I said "go away"
The lark replied "Hey -
You're just lucky I wasn't a shark!"

(This was too hard to resist. Sorry Sam. This Lark looks anything but savage - a real sweetie!)

Sam I think Piner and xentrik are on the right track. It looks to me like chromatic aberation (purple blooming) caused partly by overexposure and partly by a high contrast scene. Don't be scared to underexpose a little, you can get a lot of shadow detail back with photoshop.

This is nice! Kinda hard to use a tripod for steadiness in a shot like this unless the bird were sleeping, lol. I can't see what you see, to me it is nice and clear!
JuneBug

I don't have any advice either, except how to take pictures of your thumb. I just like this one.

Nice capture, Sam. I think the white areas are a little over-exposed, but there's such high contrast in this shot it'd be hard to get all of it correctly exposed. I'm with xentrik and the others - I like to set the camera a stop or two under on shots like this so the white areas aren't burn't out: under-exposed dark areas often aren't as noticeable as over-exposed bright areas. If you've got time for several shots it's worth "bracketing" - take a few shots at different exposures then select the best. Hope this helps, but I'm no pro either ;-)

Hello Sam!
I'm back with a lot of photos...
Congratulations for this beauty!!! :-)

It's a clear enough photo to see that the poor thing has a club foot...No doubt why he is standing that way. Sad...

Anastasia

Nice photo well done :) 10 from me in the vb. Thanks for sharing :)
Auline

why is it in the fractal gallery?

I am a lover of bird images and yours are quality ones. This lil beauty caught my eye as I was going through your gallery. I like the detail of this guy.The shiny feathers and that sharp pale eye. Plus the soft white under belly and those cute feet! Lovely markings too.He looks striking against the natural background. Thanks Sam, for this beautiful bird :*> ps.I feel badly now, because I did'nt realize he had a club foot :(