Preening and Sleeping Beauty

[annmpacheco]

There's non stop action at the gannet colony. Amidst the cacophony, perched on the roof of a belvedere was a preening and sleeping beauty. The sun was bright and the day warm. Such a peaceful slumber...
7D, lens 400mm, iso 400, f8, ss 1/2000 , flash -0.6. PS, sharpening, almost full frame. Is there anything I can do to optimize this image? Although the whites are not blown, I am not sure how to improve the feathers... thanks for your help.

[Kerry Perkins]

Hi Ann, I love preening shots and what a great subject. Your exposure is excellent and the flash use looks great to me. I like these shots to be really tight, as there is no environment to include so why not make it all about the preening? :c3: I took the liberty of cropping it a bit, warming up the color temp a bit by removing blue, and adding a bit of USM to bring out even more feather detail. Thanks for sharing!

[Don Railton]

This is Very Sweet Ann. Love the colours and the pose. Not able to provide any help yet with how to improve the feathers however and will defer to those that know better...

DON

[John Chardine]

Hi Ann- The whites are great and I don't think they need anything. This is because you got the exposure right so there's lots of detail and nothing hot. I like Kerry's repost which is a little flatter (the shadows look filled a bit more), and the blue in the shadows is reduced. I might consider taking a bit off the bottom to remove the small dark patch bottom-centre.

Nice memories!

[carole wiley]

Loverly. Great detail in the feathers. I like the tighter repost. Only kind of wish the eye were open, just because I think theya re so spectacular. Nice job Ann.

[Ray Rozema]

Beautiful image. Great texture/detail. Looks so soft to touch. the filled in shadows on the repost look better but minor.

[Sachin Saraf]

Great shot Ann.. tighter crop in re post makes it look slightly more interesting..

[Shreeni Rao]

Love the pose