Black Crappie with Big Mouth

This image was created on 2 May 2021 on Lake Blue Cypress working from friend Clemens Van der Werf’s flats boat. I used the hand held (gasp!) Sony FE 600mm f/4 GM OSS lens and The One, the Sony Alpha 1 Mirrorless digital camera. ISO 1600. Exposure determined via Zebras with ISO on the rear dial: 1/1000 sec. at f/4 (wide open) in Manual mode. AWB at 7:04am in very soft golden light. Wide/AF-C was active at the moment of exposure and performed perfectly.

See an image of the same bird made before the sun came over a big cloud in the blog post here.

As for the image, don't be shy; all comments are welcome and appreciated.
with love, artie

Nice to see the osprey with a whole fish and a big one at that. The light was sure sweet. Nice pose on both heads. Detail is great as well.

Holy moly, that's a lot of sashimi there.... at first I though the fish caught the bird.

Composition is very interesting being that tall and thin but I totally see why you did so with the vegetation included. It's quite nice with the brighter grass/shrub in the FG and the darker transitioning bkg.

The open mouth calling and posture is great. Did you clone the end of the perch?

Thanks, Brian. This original post is 2X3 (so not long and thin). The end of the perch is as in the raw file, untouched. As here. What were you seeing?

with love, a

Artie:

Dramatic, one heck of a fish with good head angle, interesting perch.

I might consider lowering the luminosity of the bright vegetation at the bottom of the frame a bit. It is bright enough that it competes with the bird/fish for the eyes attention, at least mine.

I really miss Florida!

Cheers

Randy

An unusual shot, I would suggest less crop would be beneficial, I would get a better impression of the surroundings. I would also look at the contrast in the plumage, the darks are almost blocked completely and some of the whites are blown, also introduce selective detail in the plumage, I feel it has been lost with the crop.

I love the fish (the open mouth is great) and the osprey and the simple perch.
I find the vegetation at the bottom of the frame a bit overwhelming.
The green BG is so nice-wish it was all green but still very nice with the tendrils of moss,
Gail

That crappie is in trouble! Best looking osprey caught fish in a frame. I really like this dynamic frame, and your framing as well. Perhaps some TLC to shadows and highlights...

That’s exactly how an osprey looks like on lake blue cypress. Miss that place. And the fish…. Just awesome. I never got one with a whole fish and it’s head visible so well

I wouldn’t touch anything. Looks great from here

TFS

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Arthur Morris

Thanks, Brian. This original post is 2X3 (so not long and thin). The end of the perch is as in the raw file, untouched. As here. What were you seeing?

with love, a

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Very good. There seemed to be a diagonal line going up/right toward the little nub coming off and the pointy tip was just unique. Sometime PS will create points like that when you let it content-aware fill.

Thanks for the info!

I like the framing of the bird and the fish is really nice.

No changes from me.

TFS


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jonathan Ashton

An unusual shot, I would suggest less crop would be beneficial, I would get a better impression of the surroundings. I would also look at the contrast in the plumage, the darks are almost blocked completely and some of the whites are blown, also introduce selective detail in the plumage, I feel it has been lost with the crop.

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This is the full frame. As suggested above, you can see a wider view of the same bird, in the blog post linked to in Pane 1. I was surprised to see that there is some highlight clipping in the RED channel (but none in the dark tones). And the detail in the BLACKs looks fine to me.

Finally, as there was no crop it is not possible for anything to have been "lost in the crop" as you stated.

with love, artie

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Arthur Morris

This is the full frame. As suggested above, you can see a wider view of the same bird, in the blog post linked to in Pane 1. I was surprised to see that there is some highlight clipping in the RED channel (but none in the dark tones). And the detail in the BLACKs looks fine to me.

Finally, as there was no crop it is not possible for anything to have been "lost in the crop" as you stated.

with love, artie

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Artie my misinterpretation I saw the other image and assumed incorrectly this was a crop. Having said that if this is full frame where is the plumage detail? The image looks very smooth to me have you used NR????

Jees thats a lot of fish for that bird, expression on birds face is saying - I cant believe I just pulled that off... Great pic well done