Kingfisher having a bath

[Piotr Szydlo]

I took this photo in RSPB Rye Meads. This one was having a bath while building the nest. Photo was taken end of March.
Canon 7D + 400mm f/5.6L
I've oversharpened it in CS4;)

Exposure 1/1250
f/8
ISO 500

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7113/6857863134_0ac808d855_b.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/61267154@N04/6857863134/)

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Piotr, a big welcome to BPN, and hope to see join in with all the fun. A great site to learn, and to get to meet fellow members from across the globe. Well timed to get the KF exiting the water, and the colours on the little guy look spot on. I would like to ask why you have deliberately 'oversharpened' the image, as stated in your introduction, as it has spoilt the IQ on the KF. I would like you to revisit the image and try and maybe selectively sharpen the KF, and not to over do it. The water infront of the exit splash looks a bit funky, as if too much NR has been applied there. Cropping off from the bottom of the splash wont harm the image either. Hopefully you take the above as positives, and look forward to more from you.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Welcome to BPN Piotr!! Great timing and colours, but as Stuart mentions (and so do you!) the image is way oversharpened and this has lessened the overall IQ of the image. Hope you will enjoy all that is offered here on BON, including tons of information in the "Educational Resources" forum. Looking forward to your participation!

[Piotr Szydlo]

Thank you for feedback Stuart and Daniel. What happened was: image that is posted is a hefty crop and during PP I've noticed that its quite soft and a bit noisy. I've used Neat image to remove the noise and applied a Smart Sharpen selectively on a KF. I was quite happy with the outcome and seeing some detail and contrast back, I've decided to upload the image. The more I look at this photo, the more I can see that its overdone. I need to improve my PP technique and I hope to learn a lot from here:) Thank you once again for constructive feedback guys! I'll try to edit the original once again when I finish my shift tonight (It's 00:45 here in UK and I'm doing a night shift:)