Pied Billed Grebe

Canon 7D
Canon 500/4 + 1.4x

1/1600sec f/7.1 ISO 400

Color Efex Pro 4
CS6

Attachment 127349

Ian:

Your grebe is sharp, well exposed, nice preening pose. Despite the upward head position, I would still be tempted to take a bit off the top.

Cheers

Randy

Agree with some off the top. I've shot these cute guys before and thought they were juveniles (I'm not a birder, much to learn) -- is this an adult?

Lovely light which has served to bring out extra nice detail, like it's preening pose and i also feel a crop off the top would be nice, perhaps to the reddish coloring on the top

Thanks, folks. Yes, Diane, I believe it is an adult (not 100% sure about that though).

As for taking some off the top... I'm not sure about that and would love to hear more thoughts as to why. If I trim the top, he will become more centered on the vertical axis (unless I also bring some off the bottom which I didn't do so as not to crowd his virtual feet ... should I?)

Indeed this is a breeding plumaged adult bird (only those have the black ring on the bill). I too agree with removing some off the top. The subject is not centered horizontally so it would still work very nicely. You don't need to crop lots, just enough to make the comp less square and more in line to 3:2 ratio. I'm not married to that ratio, but it works best most of the time IMO.

Hmmm ... trying to decide.

Here it is in 3:2.

Attachment 127371

Lovely light and killer behavior. RP looks much better with the new comp!