Spoonbill landing into the black.
I was fairly happy how this one turned out. The light angle wasn't perfect but did give interesting results for incoming birds onto the dark BG. The BG was already mostly pitch black before any post-processing...only patched out a few stray elements. I liked the visible ground but it was quite faint so I lightened it a bit more to make it worth keeping there. I also tried groundless version by cloning out all the bottom stuff but I did not like the outcome at all.
Canon 40D + 100-400L @400mm, manual exposure, evaluative metering, 1/2000s., f/7.1, ISO 500, -2/3 EC (metered off still birds just out of frame, and histogram checked), handheld.
http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w...ll_0389-01.jpg