Early Morning Run

[Morkel Erasmus]

Captured this image the other day before sunrise at our local lake.

I like the mood here, would have to go back to see if there are better shots waiting to be taken as the sunrise glow illuminates the water. I wish the water was "cleaner" but that's what you have to deal with at this spot.

I know it won't be to everyone's tastes, but still curious to get any and all honest feedback...

Techs:
Nikon D3s with Nikkor 500mm f4 VR-II + 1.4xTC @ 700mm
f5.6 @ 1/640 SS @ ISO-5000

[arash_hazeghi]

great dynamic landing, I like the splash, however I'd like the eye to be better defined, maybe you can crop tighter without loosing the trail such that the eye becomes visible too. Impressive that you still have detail in the blacks at ISO 5000! (but not a surprise :w3 )

[Randy Stout]

Morkel:

I really like the overall effect, composition, back lighting, water trail.

If the water was cleaner, it would have been a killer, with much stronger reflection and fewer distracting elements.

Impressive high ISO performance.

Cheers

Randy

[Greg Basco]

Morkel, I really like the idea here. If I had this spot available, I would be thinking about dropping the exposure to let a lot of the water go black (thus minimizing the detritus) and really trying to get the light coming through the wings. That is, I would be going for shapes and not worrying about having any shadow detail at all. It would be a different presentation than what many might like on the forums, but I think it could be quite nice. A bit of flash might make for an interesting effect.

Cheers,
Greg

[Ken Watkins]

Morkel,

A very interesting idea indeed, I particularly like the reflected wings.

Obviously the light on the water has made good exposure really difficult. Given that it is a local lake I would give it another try,

[Daniel Cadieux]

I like the idea behind the image, and I'm really digging what Greg is suggesting. As is I thnk I would go for an even thinner pano crop by eliminating some at bottom, even if it means cutting the reflection's lower wing. That is a spot I would surely revisit...

[Ken Watkins]

Morkel,

I could not resist having a go at this, what do think?

Duplicate layer opened up bird in curves, erased the lightening on water.

Gave it some oomph, and sharpened very little.

[Paul Guris]

I think the re-post has a lot more impact. The gold and white bright spots jump out and the bird plays a bigger role.

[Morkel Erasmus]

Thanks for the insightful feedback folks, and also for the suggestion from Greg and the repost from Ken. Since Ken made it lighter, I thought I would play with Greg's suggestion too so we can see the 2 side-by-side so to speak. :bg3:

[dankearl]

Morkel, I like the OP, better than the reposts.
I think with the conditions and iso5000, your first attempt is probably the best you are going to do
with the image.
I like it, I am not sure given the light and conditions, you could do any better than you did and you get
a lot out of high iso situations.

[Jamie Douglas]

This is easily to my taste Morkel. I like the green and gold tones of the original post.