American coot

[Gene Herzberg]

Taken at the local lake. They are actually very uncommon here in Newfoundland. Usually only get one or two at the lake each winter.

Sony a700, sigma 100-300 f4 lens, taken at f4.0, 1/640 sec, iso 800.

Gene

[Robert Amoruso]

Gene,

Can we send you some (have tons of them here in Florida). :) You did well here capturing the coot with a good head angle and excellent detail in the feathers. Looks like a soft overcast light. I also like the water BG to separate the head from the BG and the tan straw that make a nice arc in the image.

For future images ttry to position yourself to get the feet in as well or when covered as they are here, leave room for the virtual feet In your image the feet you can't see are right at the edge of the bottom. You could also do a selection on head, and on that selection only, lighted it up some using the mid-tones slider. This will help to match the tonality of the head with the rest of the body.

Nice work and I look forward to seeing more.

[Harold Davis]

nice job with the coot. i agree with robert about brightening the head only. other than that, i think it's a great environmental shot. cant wait to see more.

[Gene Herzberg]

Thanks Robert. I did try to move to capture the feet but when I did the angle of the rest of the bird was very bad. So, I decided to take the photo as posted. I also thought about lightening the head but it really is very black compared to the body and when I lightened the head the difference between the body and head was lessened and looked unnatural.

Gene

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Gene Great suggestions I like he setting and shadow detail The fg oof grass detracts a bit Downloaded the image and lighten the face Also darkened the corners to funnel the attention straight into the bird The beak (black part) was darkened and tweaked the grass a bit Very nice work !!!!