![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/green-tailed-towhee-4424-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"green-tailed-towhee-4424-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\nTypically I don’t do portraits but in this case it seemed like a pretty darn good option.<\/p>\n
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1\/5000, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n Yesterday morning while I was photographing House Wrens in the mountains this Green-tailed Towhee appeared unexpectedly in a bush very close to me – the same bush the wrens like to hang out in. In fact he did it twice but both times much of his body was hidden by twigs and leaves. These towhees have been a favorite of mine for years but this year they’ve been elusive for me so having one tantalizingly close, twice, but mostly hidden was highly frustrating.\u00a0I took some photos anyway.<\/p>\n I became even more frustrated when I looked at my images at home and realized how sharp and detailed ‘his’ head was so I opted to crop for a head shot, a portrait, and I like the results.. I’m a sucker for detail in my images and I think the detail in this photo is excellent. He’s so sharp I had to reduce the amount of sharpening I normally apply to my images during processing by 25%.<\/p>\n His head angle is just about ideal for a portrait and I love that I caught his red crown raised. I also like the context provided by the out of focus green leaves surrounding him and the clean background.<\/p>\n Portraits may or may not be your cup of tea but occasionally I like the variety.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n PS – For those who may be curious, probably mostly pixel-peeping photographers, this version of the photo was cropped to 17.5% of the original image (3.5 MP out of 20 MP).\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Typically I don’t do portraits but in this case it seemed like a pretty darn good option.<\/p>\n