Osprey with Nesting Material

[Gail Cordes]

This osprey is bringing nesting material to his mate in the Flamingo area of Everglades Nat'l Park.

Canon 40D 300 F4 with 1.4tc. Manual metering with EV 0; hand held; ISO 400 f8 1/800. Full frame with a bit of canvas added to the right.

Thanks for looking.

[Randy Stout]

Gail:

Very nice pose, angle in the frame and stick. Good decision on adding the canvas to the right. I like it that there is a little cloud detail in the background, adds interest.

I might consider brightening the entire image just a bit. The whites certainly look like they could stand it.

Thanks for posting!

Randy

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Good wing position, details and the nesting material adds to it. I would crop a bit off the bottom. Keep them coming!

[Fabs Forns]

Very nice capture, Gail, you are doing great! The high key is very becoming to Ospreys.
Agree with Axel on cropping some off the bottom, since he seems to be flying upwards.

[Arthur Morris]

Hi Gail and welcome, Nice pose and stick. Please explain what you mean by "Manual metering with EV 0." I ask because the image looks a tad muddy to me.

[Randy Stout]

Gail:

This is what I meant about brightening the image. It might also address Artie's concern about it being a tad muddy.

I made a curves adjustment, raising the middle of the curve a modest amount.

Randy

[Gail Cordes]

Hi Gail and welcome, Nice pose and stick. Please explain what you mean by "Manual metering with EV 0." I ask because the image looks a tad muddy to me.

What I meant was that I used manual exposure and the meta data said "EV 0" so I just copied that.

[Gail Cordes]

Gail:

This is what I meant about brightening the image. It might also address Artie's concern about it being a tad muddy.

I made a curves adjustment, raising the middle of the curve a modest amount.

Randy

Thanks for the help. I agree that the undersides of the wings are brighter but it seems to me that the little bit of color that was in the sky is now absent. I know that many people like it brighter, but I hate to give up the tones in the sky.

[Stu Bowie]

Lovely angle of flight, and like the wing position. I agree to maybe move him down in the frame a bit, and the nesting material a bonus.

[Randy Stout]

Gail:

I appreciate your point about the white sky. I was just doing a quick pass to open up the underwing detail. Here is another variant, with a little more detail/color in the sky. The point is, the image has lots of options, can easily be tweaked if you like.

Randy

[Gail Cordes]

Thanks. I will play with it. Gail