King of the Hill

[Grace Scalzo]

You gave me such terrific suggestions on my last post, here's an attempt to implement them. I chose a slightly different pose, I like this one with the slightly more open wings and beak. Then I copied part of the sandcastle from another image in this series, and worked to tone down the brights and show more detail, and lighten the face area. I did no work to the sand in front of the bird, that's the way it looked, but maybe I should?

Thank to all who offered help and comments.

1/1600, f 5.6, iso400 (Incident metered)
Canon mk3 (borrowed!), 500 f4 + 1.4tc + tripopd

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Absolutely superb image Grace. I am blown away. Incredible! Maybe sharpen the eye just a tiny bit more. Thanks for sharing. :)

[Sinh Nhut Nguyen]

I like it as is, the crop works well for me. Exposure is spot on.

[Doug Brown]

Works for me as presented Grace! Awesome wing position and great eye contact. Beautiful light. Very nice!

[Mike Veltri]

Love the wing stretch and details with lovely light Grace.

[Fabs Forns]

Great pose and light, Grace. A pet peeve of mine is the terns wing tips capitalizing in all the sharpening. I would sharpen the head some more and mask out the sharpening in the wing tips, especially the left wing. As presented, it's sharper than the head.

[Raymond Barlow]

this looks so much better Grace! well done.

[Stu Bowie]

With more at the bottom, this is much better than your previous post. Great show of the extended wings, well exposed and sharp. Well captured Grace.

[Dave Barnes]

Very good PP Grace, I think it works. I would like a bit more space above the bird.
Very good detail on the lighter feathers.

[Kiran Poonacha]

Lovely image.. loved the pose very much and good details too.. congrats..

[Chris Kotze]

Super detail and pose. Sharp and well exposed

[Ramon M. Casares]

Very nice again, but agree with Fabs, altough in stead of sharpening the head more, I would apply less sharpening to the white lines of the primary feathers.
Congratulaitons.

[Juan Aragonés]

Grace it works for me, the whites are much better than in the previous image :-)

[Charles Glatzer]

Grace,

Way to go, and nice job on the exposure ;).

Chas

[Nagesh Mula]

Hi Grace, its a terrific image and spot on. I've been trying to take this particular pose since a long time but not sucessful yet. Well captured without blowing up highlights and the angle here is perfect showing both the upside and downside of the plumage. Congrats!!