Dancing with the Grebes

[Joe Ford]

Canon 1Dmkiii
Canon 400 f5.6
Canon 1.4 TC
1/5000
f9
Hand held (braced on the back of my truck)
Exposure Compensation -2/3
Aperture priority
Evaluative Metering
Morning (7:00 AM) sun directly at my back

Did not have much time as I was sitting in my truck when I saw this pair posturing (beak to beak, heads down) for a dance. I was concentrating on exposure compensation after following Artie's recent challenge thread. I was thinking lots of white, bright sun, mkiii, dark surround. This was almost identical to the aligator and egret. So as I was scrambling to the back of my truck I was setting the compensation. I think I should have also upped the aperture, but ran out of time. Comments welcomed and appreciated.

Joe

[ashkan ojaghi]

Hi.. I think you've captured a rare photographed moment .. the pose , the action , freezing the jumping and splashing water , all of them is wonderful ..
despite of a challenging light, you've exposed it well but it could be a little brighter and sharper .. I was looking for a picture from dancing grebes here but i was faild .. I really wish to photograph a moment like this...
thank you for sharing this beautiful bird behaviour with us!

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Great interaction captured. I like the poses and dynamic feel to it. I might selectively sharpen the heads and tone down the whites on the chests as they look a bit overexposed.

[Arthur Morris]

Yes, you have captured an amazing moment. Congrats. As I have written here 500 times, exposure problems arise when working off angle to the sun (that is hard from the right here). Again, using lots of flash in these situations can help. I would go to the left eye of each bird, enlarge it a bunch, use a QM to darken and sharpen the pupils, and another set of QMs to des-SAT the red irises... My 2 cents.

[Judy Lynn Malloch]

Fantastic timing and action you captured in this image I love it. Artie has covered it all but defintiely an incredible image.

[Gus Cobos]

Great capture Joe...:D
Love the dancing and the splashing and the happy time...:D

[Doug Brown]

Way to go Joe! Suggestions aside, you've got a killer image here. Congrats!