Cormarant vs Fish

[Dumay de Boulle]

This was taken at Rietvlei Nature Reserve near Pretoria South Africa. I like the light and colours. Shot MRAW and processed in CS4

Canon 7D
Canon 300 f2.8 L IS and 1.4 ext
Aperture Priority
f5.6
ISO 640
1/4000
AWB

Crit please as I want to improve.

[christopher galeski]

good action shot,great timing,maybe tone down the neck a bit,wish I had took it.thanks.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Oh man, tremendous action you managed to capture here!! Timimg was perfect on your part. Good details, and I especially like the feathers on the body. It would be worth revisiting the RAW file to tone down the areas that are pushing hot. Judging by the water action/ripples the image may need a slight CCW rotation. Good stuff!

[Stu Bowie]

Hey Dumay, two open mouths, one hungry, the other about to disappear. Great timing, and overall, nice and sharp. I would move the cormy to the right.

[Dumay de Boulle]

Thanks guys for the advice. I went back to the drawing board. I did a 1 degree CCW rotation and tried to tone down the hot spots.

[Dumay de Boulle]

For some reason it didnt attach on the last post. Tried again

[Dumay de Boulle]

Sorry, happened again :o

[Daniel Cadieux]

Rotation looks good - I had a hunch the image needed it. When reprocessing your image you need to tweak the brights only as the darks and midtones were OK before - now they are too dark. Still, it looks like some of the lighter areas on the neck are burnt so you may have to "borrow" pixels from adjascent feathers to tame those areas down by using the clone stamp. Try a small soft brush, and about 20% opacity. There are probably other ways, but this is the one that comes to mind right now. This image is way worth working on......

[Roberto Betta]

Fantastic timing Dumay, the second upload looks much better.

[Dumay de Boulle]

Tried your option on the JPEG, Is this what you had in mind Daniel! Gonna keep trying...Thanks Daniel for all your help:)

[Colin Knight]

I love this image, and the processing that Daniel mentioned would put it over the top!

Great timing here no doubt. Thanks for sharing.

[arash_hazeghi]

Way cool pose and action, love the fish. The last repost is the best.

[Don Lacy]

HI Dumay, Wonderful image a perfect example of capturing the decisive moment. I reworked the image to tone down the bright areas on the Cormorant and fish since I like the water on your first post I used layer mask to apply the adjustments only to the subject while leaving the BG alone.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Tried your option on the JPEG, Is this what you had in mind Daniel! Gonna keep trying...Thanks Daniel for all your help:)

Yes! Your third version (pane #10) looks best. Just a bit of refinement to do...but you got the gist. Way to go!

[Steve Canuel]

Neat capture. Would normally say I'd like to see an eye on the fish but the slight twist of the body and the direct view of the open mouth make seeing an eye unnecessary for me. Nicely done.

[Harshad Barve]

this is total killer shot , how I wish this was in my files
TFS

[sulasula]

My mouth is open too :-) Nice capture! I would prefer even lower angle but still amazing shot!