Swallow

[Rachel Hollander]

There were a few of these swallows flying around the Num-Ti-Jah Lodge on Bow Lake on the Icefields Parkway in the Canadian Rockies.

Canon 7D
100-400 @ 235mm
1/1000
f5.0
ISO 400
HH, cropped (more than I usually crop), s/h, and sharpened in CS5.

C&C welcome and appreciated. Thanks,

Rachel

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Rachel,

Love the pose and feel of this one, what beautiful colors too. Background is muted and smooth. URHC is a tad dark but I like the natural feeling and would not change it. Looks like noise in the image, did you run and NR. Otherwise the large crop might have affected the IQ.

[Cody Covey]

Unfortunately the image quality has definitely suffered from the large crop. Not sure if you could sharpen less and run some more noise reduction. As far as composure goes it looks fine although I may like some more room to the right if you have it. Head angle is great with great eye contact.

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Jeff and Cody - I didn't run any NR at all on the OP so ran some selectively on the bg and also did a less severe crop.

Thanks again,
Rachel

[wendell westfall]

Rachel, I think the NR helped, but I liked your original crop better . . .

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Much better, you can play with the crop. Might add canvas to the left and reduce perch size. All crop and subjective stuff.

[carole wiley]

I like the repost, nice colors and pose, I think the BG colors add balance to the wonderful colors of the bird. I like the crop in the repost.

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Wendell, Jeff and Carole

[Kerry Perkins]

Hi Rachel, good advice offered above and the repost is much better in terms of image quality. For me, a crop in between the two with a little added space on the left as Jeff suggests. Very nice job on the exposure and colors!

[Rachel Hollander]

Went back to the original RAW file to revisit the crop. So here's a crop in between the two.

Thanks again for all the kind comments and suggestions.

Rachel

[Rob Mckenzie]

Wonderful capture. The progression from the OP to the second RP is awesome. I like the space around the bird now compared to the OP.

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Rob, did the last one too fast and that one out of place feather on the chest looks funky but I think the crop works.

Rachel