Pied Billed Grebe

[Ian Cassell]

I find these guys so elusive. They always swim in the middle of the pond out of range of my 400mm. This guy was doing likewise, but dived under water only to resurface near me (before quickly swimming away again).

Canon 7D
Canon EF 400mm f/5.6L
1/1250 sec f/6.3 ISO 400

Crop for composition, levels, sharpening in CS6
NR on BG in Noiseware 5

I wish the head was turned just a tad more towards me, but he scurried off before obliging.

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

Ian,

Greetings. Agree with the elusive part... Seems a tad soft, I think a bit more sharpening/detailing would do the trick. Might clone those dots in the foreground. Color is always hard to judge but the back looks a little purple to me.

Cheers,

-Michael-

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Ian,

This species are you mentioned are distant and always diving. The opportunity here is subject placement and sharpness. Consider removing a layer from the bottom the partial reflection allows the eye to exit the frame and that would help minimize it. Regarding detail ,try a tripod, bracing the lens or maybe shooting wide open and adding more shutter (might be a few hot pixels too - more shutter helps this as well). I like the use of shadow and texture and the composition is framed well. The muted background is clean and non-distracting. On balance this is a challenging one to capture - nice photo - keep em coming.

[Ian Cassell]

Thanks, Jeff. What do you mean by removing a layer from the bottom?

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Sorry Ian, probably should be more specific crop some from the bottom (maybe close to the tiny white spot in the bottom of the pic) this will reduce the negative space and keep the eye in the frame IMO.

[Ian Cassell]

Aha. Gotcha! Thanks. I struggled with that as I actually had more cropped off the bottom. I wasn't sure where to stop.

[Karen Forderer]

Great shot. I agree with the elusive bit. I have been trying to photograph 3 grebes that have been on our local lake for the last 2 weekends. They are constantly diving and popping up elsewhere. The two female hooded mergansers that are with them are even more elusive.

[Kerry Perkins]

Hi Ian, good job of seizing the opportunity to capture the little grebe. I find that you just have to pick a spot and hang out until one pops up in front of you like this. The light seems a little contrasty to me, maybe 1/3 stop less on the exposure by going to 1/1600. The color cast that Michael is seeing on the back is due to reflections of the sky and water. I usually take the sponge tool set to desaturate and paint out all the color in areas like this. Then you can use a brush tool in color mode and paint some of the brown back in.