Golden Grebe

[Dorian Anderson]

Here's one from last week around the Bay Area. I noticed the reflection of these earthen cliffs
on this bit of water while birding the previous day. Came back properly armed the next and
found the perfect angle from which to make the water entirely gold. Had to wait an hour,
but this Pied-billed Grebe eventually came swimming along to make the cold, soaked legs
totally worth it.

Canon 500mm f/4 IS + 1.4x III on EOS 5D Mark IV
1/1600 at f/7.1, ISO 800, handheld in water

Cheers
Dorian

[arash_hazeghi]

love the low angle, sweet light and the calm water. The eater drops add more interest and the HA is perfect too, sharp with good details. the whites a re a bit hot and need be toned down a bit

TFS

[gail bisson]

This is GOOD Dorian!
Love the light, the POV, the HA.
Agree with Arash re" the whites" but a truly easy fix as they are not blown.
Well done,
Gail

[John Whaley]

Beautiful light, calm water and low pov. The water drops on the back add to the image. Well done. Agree with it being a bit hot and there are a couple of specs on the water in front of the Grebe that I would remove.

[annmpacheco]

Super golden jackpot here Dorian, well done. Maybe clean up that second catchlight.

[Isaac Grant]

Very pretty shot. All about the light and you captured it really well. just lower the highlights a bit on the bird and you are all set.

[Dorian Anderson]

With suggested changes....thanks
174513

[Isaac Grant]

This is better but some of the whites are sill a little hot. The lower beak, the area behind the eye, some of the highlights on the neck and rear flanks. If you go into levels in PS. COMMAND L on a Mac or Control L on a PC. There will be a histogram that shows. Under the histogram are 3 triangles. The one to the left is the black point. The one in the middle is the gray point and the one to the right is the white point. If you go to the one on the right (the white point) and hold down the OPTION (or ALT) button while left clicking on your mouse the areas that have whites at 255 or above with show up as red. If none of your whites are at 255 then the whole image will be black. It is an easy way to make sure you are good. I sometimes don't mind blowing some whites when it is just the highlights from the bird being wet as that is natural and how the eye sees it. In this case I may just leave it as you did here in the repost. I did not mention it before but I think this is one of the nicer Pied-billed Grebe images that I have seen.

[John Mack]

Sweet light here. Love all the golden tones. Nice low angle with good detail.