Osprey Carrying Fish

I took this image at Huntington Beach State Park, SC last November during a short window when the sun was out early morning. I think the image was slight under-exposed, perhaps by 1/3 EV, as there is a little bit of noise on the underside of the wing. I toyed with both a horizontal and almost square crop, but not happy with it. So please let me know what you think of this vertical crop. I bumped up the exposure slide in LR4 by 1/3 EV, increased shadow and dark levels a little, apply punch and contrast, and then darkened and increased the saturation of the sky a little bit.

1DX
500f4 II + 1.4X II
1/4000
f5.6
ISO-1600
Handheld
Evaluative Metering, + 1 2/3 EV bias compensation

Cropped about 20% off the bottom and 1/3 left and 1/3 right

thank you.

Loi

Looks quite excellent to me. SH with a good EXP. Love the pose, the angled-towards-you flight, and the fish. Do you know the species of the fish? Love the cloud too. Can you post the full frame image? IQ looks great.

Really nice flight pose. The catch is a nice bonus. Exposure looks good. Think I would prefer more room in front.

Would like to see the horizontal crop that you toyed with. I rather enjoy this vertical crop, though.

Excellent capture! The bird is nicely exposed. The details are fantastic. I prefer a more horizontal crop than a vertical. The blue sky also seems a bit grainy on my screen.

Lovely raptor and great thing it has a pray! Good sky colour and sharp details.

Thank you all for your comments. It made my day after a long day at work :}.

Artie, what is SH as in your "SH with a good EXP"? Kind of a dumb question but I have to ask. No, sorry I don't know the fish species, will have to ask around. Please see the full frame image here.

Thank you!

Excellent flight pose with nice head turn and sharpness you have captured.
Would go for horizontal composition.

Regards,
Satish.

Hi Loi, good show of the near wing, and we have a good view of how the Osprey is holding onto his catch. Comp wise, just a personal thing, Im finding the comp a bit too squarish, so adding to the right will work for me. :w3

I missed this one before,
Lovely image , the bird has wonderful details on it so does its catch.