Wood Stork Portrait

[Bill Dix]

D90, 80-400 VR @ 240mm. ISO 400. f/6.3 @ 1/4000s. Matrix metering @ -1.0. Hand-held. Cropped from vertical image of bird in standing pose.

Five of these guys were standing around in Ding Darling about a month ago, looking to me like a bunch of prehistoric old men. C&C appreciated.

[arash_hazeghi]

Beautiful portrait Bill, well done, maybe a bit of sat boost.

[Aidan Briggs]

Nice exposure, eye contact, and BG. Whites look a bit muddy, and there seems to be some details lost due to compression.

Keep them coming!

[Bill Dix]

Thank you Arash and Aiden. I think I was trying to avoid clipping the whites, and I did lose some detail in the jpeg. Here is a repost with a bit more saturation, contrast, slight additional sharpening, and setting a white point. I think it does help, if I didn't overdo it. Thanks for looking.

[David Thomasson]

Razor sharp details and I love the pose. That bird has the dignity of an archbishop! :D

I don't think it needs saturation so much as more contrast (luminance) between subject and background. In the style of a studio portrait, I would also "flag" the
light off toward the bottom. Something like this:

http://img682.imageshack.us/img682/7162/bishopa.jpg

[Bill Dix]

Wow. That really pops him out from the background. I can almost imagine him sitting for the portrait in a studio. Thanks David.