"hey girls, look at my foot!"

Horned grebe or Slavonian grebe taken in Iceland. I think this was more than a stretch, as there was another grebe close by and they both did a bit of frolicking...They would stretch out low in the water and then the male would explode into a chase.
Overcast at the time when I shot this and the blacks had noticeable noise. I processed in DPP, onto PS where I decreased exposure on the blacks, and also added a few points of black in Selective Color. There was a blueish cast and so I added a point or two of yellow and that seemed to make a noticeable difference. I notice a bluish green in the back of the black neck but i am certain the water color is showing through the thinner feathers there. Added some contrast as well. Selectively sharpened the foot, selectively applied NR to blacks around the head and BG, neat image... Not a fan of green water and don't care for the highlighted white areas in the water... Any suggestions?

1Dx
840mm
ISO 2500
6.3
1/1000

This looks beautiful Ann. Love the colors and image quality here. Perfect and I mean perfect head angle and eye contact. That crazy foot is excellent as well. The highlights don't bother me at all and look fine to me. Processing is spot on! Crops are always a personal thing, but if you have the pixels maybe try a 16:9 crop and remove some of the dead space above the bird.

What a beautiful bird full of nice colours and details! That foot is out of this world. I agree with you about the water highlights, not much you could do there except hope it swam in calmer waters. I do find the grebe rather low in the frame - do you have more canvas below?

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Originally Posted by Daniel Cadieux

What a beautiful bird full of nice colours and details! That foot is out of this world. I agree with you about the water highlights, not much you could do there except hope it swam in calmer waters. I do find the grebe rather low in the frame - do you have more canvas below?

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Hi Dan, thank you. I do have more room below but I would have to settle for more white/highlighted water ripples and I set the grebe low in the frame to avoid that...

Great view of this grebe. The details look great nice low angle. Agree about the bird being low. But i understand why you did that.

Hi Ann, excellent low perspective, and you have captured all the fine detail possible - nice and sharp too. Good HA, and I like the various colours this Grebe has. Well timed to have captured the stretching of the foot.