Estero GBH

[Tom Redd]

Taken a while back with Sid Garige on his Charity Avian Tour.

D3s
Nikon 300/2.8 with 2x TC
1/1250
f/5.6
ISO 200

[Mike Landwehr]

Tom, I like the composition and the side-lighting on this one. The image really emphasizes the variety of feather colors and shapes on the GBH. For me, the greatest strength of the image is the way the beautiful pastel colors reflected from the water match with the primary colors of the GBH's feathers and legs. Wish the eye contact was a little stronger.

[Dave Leroy]

The bg is pretty neat and well seen. Very nice.

Bird seems a bit tight in frame and I might look at a bit more contrast in GBH.

Very sharp and a nice pose.

All the similar and blending colours make for a very pretty picture.

Dave

[Tom Redd]

Thank you Dave and Mike for the comments. Dave, you are correct, it is a bit tight, I had to level the horizon a bit and that made it even more tight. Unfortunately, I use Aperture for PP and I do not believe there is a way to add canvas in that program. I did bump the contrast slightly but it is not much different. If you I went higher in contrast, the darker feathers lost detail. Here it is for kicks.

[Joe Senzatimore]

I see a cyan cast in the image. I love the pose and would like a bit more room , as mentioned by the others. The pastels in the BG are beautiful.

[Tom Redd]

Joe, good eyes. I had bumped up the Vibrancy a little in the PP and it gives it this cyan cast. The original did not have it, maybe I should remove the added Vibrancy

[Munish Kaushik]

Tom,

Its a very nice image. I agree with the cast & tight framing but can't take away the composition & pose of the bird.

Thanks for sharing.


Regards,
Munish Kaushik
www.facebook.com/Kaushik.Munish

[Tom Redd]

Thank you Munish. I have reposted it with no Vibrancy added to original image. I did not increase Vibrancy much originally, so the change may not be large, but it does decrease the cyan.

[Arthur Morris]

I recognize that condo reflection. All good stuff above but everyone has missed the main problem: 99.9% of successful preening images have the bird's face parallel to the imaging sensor.... That is not the case here....

From page 25 of ABP II: (https://store.birdsasart.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=19) When making photos of preening birds, always strive to make images in which the bird’s head is roughly parallel to the imaging sensor.

[Tom Redd]

Good point Artie, thank you for the comment. More for me to learn and to recognize. Thanks.

[Arthur Morris]

You are welcome. Thanks for being open and willing to learn :) There are hundreds of similar lessons in ABP II (https://store.birdsasart.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=19).