Bashful Ballerina

[Bill Dix]

Roseate Spoonbill, from Ding Darling back in January. Cropped from horizontal.

D7000, 500f4 + 1.4x, ISO 800, 1/1000s @ f/6.3, tripod

[David Salem]

Good shot. Exposure, detail and colors are great. Since the foot is so close to the bottom you might think about taking some off the top. Nice!

David

[Arthur Morris]

Nicely done in nice soft light. As I like 3X2 I would suggest more room at the bottom; do you have it in the original??? I like the sleeping pose with the bird perfectly square to the imaging sensor.

Where in Ding?

[Chris Kotze]

Lovely pose, excellent exposed, super feather detail and colours. Ditto some space at the bottom

[Marina Scarr]

What I like most about this frame is the good look at the foot. Would consider more room at the bottom.

[Frank Schauf]

Beautiful and colorful image, Bill.

[Stan Cunningham]

Nice job Bill, agree with above comments

[Bill Dix]

Thanks everyone. When I posted this, I wondered why I had cropped it so close at the bottom. I recall that I didn't like the unattractive mud flats, so I guess I decided to crop it close, but I agree that it needs some room. I'll have to go back and reprocess from the RAW file.

Artie, this was taken along the loop drive at the mud flats not far beyond the observation tower. There wasn't much else going on there at the time of my visit.

[Don Nelson]

Great pose. I agree with the need for more space at bottm. If it were mine, I'd clone out the stray feather at the top of the head -- my eye tends to move there when viewing the image, and that's not the important part of the image.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks Bill. We look forward to seeing the repost.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Bill, love the 'beady eye' sleeping pose, and overall, well exposed. I really like how the spoonie pops from the surrounding BG. Im going to be the odd one out here, as I would have gone with a horizontal comp.

[gail bisson]

I like the sleeping pose and good look at the feet.IQ is excellent. I would prefer this as a horizontal as well with more on the bottom and less on top,
Gail

[Bill Dix]

I appreciate all the comments and suggestions. I've gone back to the RAW file and started from scratch, trying both horizontal and vertical. In the process, I also seem to have altered the color balance just a bit; the OP seemed to have a slight greenish cast. Like Artie, I have generally liked a 3:2 format, and here's the first of two reposts, using 3:2. More room beneath certainly helps, but in this case I think there's too much room at the top. Maybe a 4:3, somewhere between this and the OP might be better. See the next pane for a horizontal version.

[Bill Dix]

Here's a horizontal version at 2:3, with just a little more room beneath the feet. I'm thinking I like this better. I'd love to know what you think.

[Arthur Morris]

The horizontal crop is the winner but the bird needs to be more to our left in the frame :).

[dankearl]

The horizontal is definitely the best for me.
Great pose, color and all else is really nice.

[Ken Watkins]

Bill,

My first visit to this, the colours are remarkable, for me the horizontal re-post is a clear winner