Great crested grebe courtship display

[Jonathan Ashton]

Camera Model Canon EOS 7D
Shooting Mode Aperture-Priority AE
Tv( Shutter Speed ) 1/1600
Av( Aperture Value ) 6.3
Metering Mode Evaluative Metering
Exposure Compensation -1/3
ISO Speed 400
Lens EF500mm f/4L IS USM +1.4x
AF Mode AI Servo AF
AF area select mode Manual selection

All C & C welcome.

[Arthur Morris]

Sweet action, esp. the pose of the bird on our left. Sharp and EXP looks good but image looks overall too dark from here. What are the rest of you seeing?

It far shoreline makes it look as if it needs a nice CCW rotation but the near bird looks level.... IAC, the merge of the top of the bird's heads with the far shoreline is a distraction; was higher possible?

[Jack Breakfast]

RE Arthur's too-dark comment, I like the brightness as-is but I'll admit that I'm on a Mac laptop, for what it's worth...

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Jon,
Looks a bit dark on my monitor too. Awesome looking birds. Agree BG isn't my favorite either.....so slightly higher if possible.

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

I love the series. I have always felt they were a little dark but the whites look nice so maybe just lighten those heads a bit. I just love the light you shot these in, The colors of the heads look so nice.

[dankearl]

Beautiful birds, it looks bright enough on my IPad.
I like the mood of this.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Thanks for the C&C everyone. I took the images using a tripod, the birds were sensitive to movement so to raise the tripod and reshoot was unfortunately not practicable whilst they were actually displaying. I did take images at different heights because of the background but as you see when the birds were in a good position it was usually when I wasn't!
I will have another look at the exposure, I was rather conscious of not blowing the highlights, some of my previous images lacked a little pop, I tried to put the pop in this one thinking you would like the contrast. I ensure the ambient light around my PC is subdued and I have a hood around the screen so maybe I see the image a little brighter than some??

[Jaygum]

I like the defenition and smooth of the water. BG is always a subjective matter, but that´s only my opinion. Its quiet luminous on my screen.
jaygum