Comment from Dick Lee Shia
Striking subject with fine facial features & fluffy plumage textures.

Superb eye clarity.

Great contrast against the verdant backdrop.

Nice perspective & narrow DOF.

Thanks for sharing...

 Comment Written 27-Jun-2017

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reply by the author on 28-Jun-2017

Thank you very much for your encouraging review.

Comment from michiganmike
A very nice looking male cardinal. He is a natural for this contest and is shown in very nice detail and intense red color. Best of luck in the contest.

 Comment Written 27-Jun-2017

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reply by the author on 28-Jun-2017

Thank you, I appreciate your review and your kind wishes very much.

Comment from Sean T Phelan
Cool!

These classically colorful birds are beautiful creatures indeed and your well photographed and nicely presented picture of this specimen looks Great!
'Good Show',my friend! : )
~Sean

 Comment Written 27-Jun-2017

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reply by the author on 28-Jun-2017

Thank you very much for your kind review.

Comment from FBI GUY
Red would the correct color. WOW! You nailed this little guy perfectly. Lighting and focus is great. The tight crop gives this a feeling of a 3D image. The soft green background helps pop the star.

 Comment Written 27-Jun-2017

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reply by the author on 28-Jun-2017

Thank you, I appreciate your kind review very much.

Comment from wrcphoto
Great picture of a male cardinal , I like how you were able to get light in the eye and the beak , great color , focus and details are right on , best of luck in the contest ..

 Comment Written 27-Jun-2017

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reply by the author on 28-Jun-2017

Thank you, your kind review is very much appreciated.

Comment from Mama Mia1
What a fantastic photo this is. You really captured the look on this Cardinal. It is very stern looking. What he angry that you took a shot or happy to pose for you. Great entry for the contest. Best of luck to you.

This rating does not count towards story rating or author rank.
The highest and the lowest rating are not included in calculations.

 Comment Written 27-Jun-2017

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reply by the author on 28-Jun-2017

Thank you very much for your review and your kind wishes. He was neither angry or posting. He did not know he was photographed. He was far away, so I had to use the zoom lens.

reply by Mama Mia1 on 28-Jun-2017

Great shot!!

Comment from PeglegDeb
One of my favorite little birds....lol...I LOVE red and your little guy sure is!! Perfect for this contest.

Focus on him is quite nice...and you already know what I think about the color. There's a wonderful sparkle in his eye too. I can see it must have been very bright out but looks like you've handled that quite nicely...so exposure good as well.

Your crop of the blade of grass crossing head was well done...no hint remaining. But....I'm thinking this must be quite a large crop?? There's a LOT of noise in your image, I'm afraid. You could easily run this through a de-noise filter. I was thinking perhaps you could soften the background but do not think that would completely solve the problem.

It's such a lovely bright red bird.....if you can deal w/ some of that graininess in the background please let me know and I will happily give you back the 1/2 point. Good luck!!

Deborah

 Comment Written 27-Jun-2017

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reply by the author on 28-Jun-2017

Thank you very much for your encouraging review and critical observations. You are right, I used all my zoom possible and then had to cut more than 50% of the photo. Unfortunately a de-noise filter is not included in my program. To soften the background I have to work with layers. I tried this and used Gaussian Blur, but for some reason the noise is the same in the soft version, it looks even more pixelated.

reply by PeglegDeb on 28-Jun-2017

I don't know if you realize or not that the color red can be very challenging to photograph cleanly and purely....but yours is spot on beautiful....so despite the noise your bird itself is just perfectly shown.