Little Grebe aka Dabchick

[William Dickson]

Canon 1DX
f/4 500mm with 1.4
f/5.6
1/800
ISO 1600

These are our only wintering Grebes here in Scotland. They are very aware of their surroundings and, any movement at all, even from a long distance, they dive and resurface even further away. They are very small birds, not much bigger than shown on this image, but manage to survive, even when the loch is frozen over. I have also seen them feeding in the local harbour, during the hard winter period. I captured this one from my hide at the side of the loch. Sunlight was heavily filtered from the trees surrounding me.

Will

[Dorian Anderson]

I like all the brown tones in this shot. Reflection in forewater and blurring behind are really pretty.

[annmpacheco]

Very sweet Will, lovely little one. Maybe a slight CCW rotation. I like the reflection as well.

[arash_hazeghi]

like the pose and BG, image is noisy and IQ isn't great, looks like too much of a crop?

TFS

[David Salem]

Cool shot William. Nice pose and colors. I agree about a tiny bit of CCW rotation, something I noticed right away, and another round of NR would help this larger formatted picture. Well done

[gail bisson]

Very nice Will.
I think the IQ looks fine (on my 21 " monitor) but I do see some noise in the BG so would do another round of NR.
The color palette is very pleasing. Agree it needs a bit of CCW rotation.
Love the clear eye with the perfect highlight,
Gail

[William Dickson]

Thanks for that, much appreciated. With regards to the rotation. I did change it a view times, but didn't look quite right, I ended up aligning the eye on the reflection with the eye on the bird.

Will

[Jim Crosswell]

I like the complimentary water color, water texture, reflection and sharpness. I agree with more NR on the BG. Very nice image Will.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Ah, here is where a higher angle worked to your advantage thanks to the reflection. The faint ripples in the water look great as well. I too love all the brownish tones.

[Mike Poole]

Tough birds to get close to Will, well done. The reflection in this one os great - I'd be really happy to have this in my files

Mike

[William Dickson]

like the pose and BG, image is noisy and IQ isn't great, looks like too much of a crop?

TFS


Hi Arash, Can you elaborate more on the IQ. The crop wasn't too big, the IQ looks good on my 27 5K..

[arash_hazeghi]

Hi Arash, Can you elaborate more on the IQ. The crop wasn't too big, the IQ looks good on my 27 5K..

I see a lot of noise William on the eyes and on the crown feathers, the 1DX should not have any noise at ISO 1600 unless the processing was not optimal, or it was too large of a crop from your explanation it must be the earlier. If you can post your RAW file I can work on it for you

[William Dickson]

I see a lot of noise William on the eyes and on the crown feathers, the 1DX should not have any noise at ISO 1600 unless the processing was not optimal, or it was too large of a crop from your explanation it must be the earlier. If you can post your RAW file I can work on it for you

On its way Arash. Thanks for that

Will

[arash_hazeghi]

here you go the RAW was sharp and clean the excessive noise was coming from Adobe RAW conversion, here is a fast try with the DPP

174275

[William Dickson]

Looking good. I can see how cleaner the image is without the noise. I must go back and try again, opening my RAW files with DPP. I did use it a few months ago, but went back to Adobe.

Thanks for that, much appreciated.

Will