Hovering Pied 2

[Tony Whitehead]

Another image of the same bird as in my last post. The BG are Oak trees. I like the way this captures the stillness of the body while the bird flaps rapidly in the hover. Have considered patching out the grey area bottom right but have left it for now. I like the way the beak stands out against the far wing and is visible through the motion blur of the near wing.
D300
200-400+1.4x @ 550mm
1/160 f6.3 ISO 800
Comments and advice, as always, appreciated.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the idea and crop and wish the eye were fully visible and might raise the color temperature a few degrees and wish the BG in the lower right were green, too.

[Ramon M. Casares]

IMO you went too far with the Noise Reduction tool. I also agree with Axel's comment. Congratulaitons.

[Alfred Forns]

Agree with previous Do like the selected crop and transparent view !!!

[Stu Bowie]

I like how the beak stands out against ther far wing Tony. The BG looks fine to me, ( noise wise) but maybe I would have greened the bottom RH Cnr. Still a great capture Tony.

[Daniel Cadieux]

I agree with ramone on the noise reduction. Good on the BG, but the effect is too much on the Kingfisher itself. I like the hovering pose..and the all important visible eye. Nice comp.

[Nathan Lovas]

very cool...i love the beak peaking out below...

[bill kominsky]

I really do respect everyone as photographers and artists and maybe I'm not as critical, but i love this image as i do everything you do photographically, wonderful capture.

Bill