Great crested grebe

[Jonathan Ashton]

The lady is gone, I mean solid gone!
Canon 7D Canon 500mm f4 L IS & 1.4 series 1 Manual mode ISO 320 1/2500 f5.6.. It has been a bit of a nightmare keeping an eye on the exposure, I had to keep firing "unecessary" just shots to check exposure because the light was changing so much and so frequently. All C&C welcome

[Randy Stout]

Jon:

Love the interaction, the display of the ruff on the neck/cheek area on the right bird, the closeness but still with good separation of neck and heads.

Don't feel bad about the 'test shots'. With loons, I am constantly doing test shots as they move about to be sure I have the right exposure when something special happens.

For personal taste, I might crop a sliver off the top, even though the right birds head is pointing up.

Cheers

Randy

[Rob Melone]

Jonathan, it's a great moment in nature with the birds well exposed and with nice feather detail and bill placement. You may want to try to reduce the noise a bit at the upper left side of the image. You can try just noise reduction or open the shadows a bit and then reduce noise. It's a nice image!

[Marina Scarr]

Love interaction and behavior here. I would either crop some off of the top here or try something more squarish which I don't normally like, but I Like it here.

[Karl Egressy]

Great action shot, Jon. Spring must be there already.

[keith mitchell]

Jonathan crop is ok by me, maybe a tad off the top, your effort as paid off getting you a great catch of the action.

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Cool interaction, nice light and good details on both birds.

[Jim Crosswell]

I like the sharpness, exposure, details and interaction. I would crop a little off the top as well. Very well done Jonathan!

[William Dickson]

Love this image Jonathan, it says so much to me, well done :S3:

[Iain Barker]

You capture a nice moment well here Jon. No complaints here but agree a change to the crop may make it even better. I like Marina's idea of a square crop.

TFS
Iain

[Jonathan Ashton]

Thanks very much for the feedback everyone, as I look at the image a scroll the page I can see the effect of cropping a little off the top and I agree it looks better. I will also check out a square crop Marina.

[Joseph Przybyla]

Beautiful interaction, nice image.

[christopher galeski]

nice capture,like as is,well done.

[Holger Leyrer]

Very nice image Jonathan. Love the interaction, colours and all the details.

[Frank Schauf]

Great scene and setting you have here.