Curlew Silhouette

[Aidan Briggs]

Posted this one in Avian Image Critiques, and got some interesting responses. Just thought I'd see what your opinions are.

Note: the saturation of this image has not been increased.

50D, 100-400 at 400
1/2000, f/5.6, ISO 500
About 60% of full frame

[Gus Cobos]

Hi Aidan,
I like the composition, image and capture...the silhouette of the bird is nice and sharp...I like the color rendition in the background the way presented no more, no less...the details on the cracking of the nut and the falling debris is great...I took the liberty of making a few minor adjustment to your base composition...I cropped a very small portion from the bottom, increased the contrast just a tad and selective sharpened the bird, for a more sharp prominent outline. Also ran noise reduction in the background...see if this presents best to you...:cool:

[Nonda Surratt]

Really nice sillo, and colors. Like Gus's tweaks.

For some reason I feel like the bird is cramped on top, so more off the bottom and more on top?

[Dave Mills]

Gus, I think your version helped an already nice image!!

[Katie Rupp]

Hi Aidan, very nice silhouette and I think Gus's enhancements put it over the top, sometimes it's the finishing touches that make the image shine.

[Lance Peters]

Gus's Repost puts it over the top in my Books - well done on a very good base image to start with.
Keep them coming :)

[Alfred Forns]

The main thing I see here is bird being a little tight in frame The water looks just fine and would like seeing more of it. Processing wise the suggestion of sharpening the outline is very good, they do need to be sharp !!!