Horned Grebe with fish

[Indranil Sircar]

I thought I will try to get some more images before the year ends and came up with this yesterday. The grebe took some time to swallow the fish and in the process dropping it once. All the while I was hoping it will turn the fish around with the head facing me! The settings were -

7D, Sigma 50-500mm @ 500mm hand held
1/800 sec, f/8 Mode: Av Metering: Evaluative Exp comp: -2/3

Used Topaz DeNoise and adjusted for levels and applied usm on the final web version. Your C&C will be appreciated.

[Randy Stout]

Indranil:

They have the most amazing eyes.
Fish does add a lot. Nice drops too.
The bird looks just a bit soft, esp. on the neck area. Possibly from the water. Did you run denoise on the entire image, or just the background?
I would consider a crop up from the bottom, perhaps 1/3 of the free space.

Randy

[Indranil Sircar]

Thanks Randy. Checked the raw file... the softness is most likely from the water. Denoise was for the bg although I did run a light one on the bird itself to remove some color noise. Here is a repost with revised crop...

[denise ippolito]

Indranil, I like the pose and the catch! They do have neat looking eyes. I think the repost looks better.