My Rather Vain Macawby
beamsclanComment by psychephylax: A visit from the Critique Club
(1) COMPOSITION -CONTENT - I'm torn between saying it's a good composition and saying it can be improved per some of the suggestions from other comments. I feel that overall composition works here and a lot of leading lines result in my eye resting on the beak time and time again. Anyone who has watched birds knows what they look like when they're cleaning themselves/plucking out their feathers and I feel you have captured that moment well. Almost like a candid photo of the unsuspecting pet parrot.
I think you've even used the rule of thirds placing the eye in the top left section of the photo. I think some of the other compositional suggestions are good ones, like getting a slightly different angle.
(3) CAMERA WORK -TECHNICAL - I would say the exposure is spot on, you kept the whites without blowing them up. Focus, on the other hand is acceptable in some parts but the depth of field here is lacking. Which I suspect contributed to some of the compositional comments. I noticed that you've shot this at f/5.6 with a shutter of 1/50 and ISO 200. I think you would have been better off setting the aperture in the f/8 to f/11 range and bumping up the ISO to 800. I understand that may introduce some more noise than say ISO 100/200/400 but that could be fixed with NeatImage/Noise Ninja and still give a good result.
(4) DIGITAL PROCESSING - TECHNICAL - As I mentioned before, I think that this photo lacks depth of field which is not something that's easily curable with post processing. On my monitor I do not see any flaws that jump out at me such as a color cast. I think a pass of Unsharp Mask would yield a bit sharper photo (I'm not sure if you used it or not since you left no comments).
(5) YOUR OPINION ON THE PHOTO - I like the photo and I think you have a good subject for the challenge. I'm not sure I want to say the photo tells us a story, but it's something I would consider printing had the Depth of Field issue been a bit less obvious.
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