Australasian Darter

[Tom Rambaut]

7d, 500mm +1.4mm, 1/800 @ 7.1, ISO 400. EV 0

This was taken in odd lighting conditions - overcast yet still harsh light.Top half only due to bottom half of bird being out of sight.

This bird is also known as a Snake Bird - on acount of its long snake like neck. It does not stop moving: the head and neck.

Head angle could be a little more towards camera.

Thanks

[arash_hazeghi]

excellent pose and details in great light!

[Bob Pelkey]

Good contrast in the image. The complimentary background looks a bit noisy.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Love the texture on the neck - looks like a plush toy:S3:. Good vertical comp. I agree with your comment on HA, and I agree with Bob about the noise in the BG.

[Chris Korman]

I like the composition--it is very effective with the body forming a sort of irregular pyramid shape leading up to the snaking portion of the neck and head. I think the image could do with some type of local contrast enhancement aka "clarity" as it is a little flat.

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

NR on the BG will improve the image big time. I am OK with head angle. :)

[Tom Rambaut]

Thanks for the comments. Still working on the whole reduce the noise on the background and not the sudject business. Reading up on it now. Any tips would be appreciated.

If this bird did not have a spear for a beak you would want to touch that soft neck.

[Simon Bennett]

I like composition and goldens tones. These blokes make great subjects when you can get close.

I use the Neat Image plug-in to deal with noise. In Photoshop make a copy of the background layer (Background Copy), then use the quick selection tool to select the bird, and hit ctrl-J to make a new layer with just the bird (Layer 1). Then apply NR to the whole Background Copy layer. Then right-click Layer 1 and select Merge Down to put the bird back into the into noise reduced layer.