Sweethearts

[John Goldman]

5DMkIII, 300mm 2.8+2XTC, ISO 800, ss 1/320, f14, HH prone with elbows on ground. Small crop for composition, some slight NIK tonal contrast and detail extractor.

[Tim Harding]

A lovely image.

The birds could be a little sharper, but to get this result @ 600mm and 1/320s while prone is pretty darn good technique. I'm wondering why you chose f/14. Was it to keep both birds in focus - they look to be in different planes? To me a larger aperture would have given you a lower ISO and/or higher SS to sharpen up the capture and blur the BG a bit. Looks like some of the whites on the mail are blown - I would clone out the highlight on his bill somewhat.

I am viewing this on a crappy work monitor so it might be just me though.

[Diane Miller]

Looks like you managed to get both in decent focus -- not easy! And what a cute moment caught!

The bright BG is a little distracting -- you could crop to get rid of most of that horizontal piece of grass at the top, and do a gradient burn on most of it -- might have to mask out the heads. Well worth a little work on this one!

Thanks for sharing!

[John Goldman]

Thank you for your comments.