Limpkin Posing

[Stephen Presutti]

Limpkins are noisy! I took this in the morning at East Lake Toho in St. Cloud, FL. I went looking for Snail Kites, but no luck. This guy landed on the top of a tree in front of me and posed in the morning sun. I couldn't turn it down!

Cropped to square. Minor sharpening and noise reduction in LR and CS5.

Nikon D7000 | Sigma 120-300mm f/2.8 | 1.4x TC
210 mm | 1/800s | f/4 | ISO 200

[ChrisCallahan]

I like his pose. The white balance seems a wee green, though.

[Gerald Kelberg]

Hi Stephen,

Limpkins are totally new to me - never heard of them 'til now! Pretty wild looking creature! I wouldn't turn it down either.

But your image isn't working for me. A combination of the steep angle and the overall processing, make the image look quite unnatural to me. I hope you don't mind, I took it and made some adjustments/reductions to the brightness, contrast and colour saturation. I feel more comfortable with it now - what do you think?

You have a halo around the bird from your NR or sharpening - remember to feather your selection or mask by 1 pixel and you can avoid that halo.

Have another run at your processing and see what what you can do! Maybe you could give the bird a little more space with a different crop, too.

Good luck with it!

Gerald

[Kerry Perkins]

Stephen, Gerald just saved me a bunch of typing... Nice job to get the bird so nicely in your frame, maybe a little more room on the top and left for a bird this size. I like Gerald's repost, not a drastic change but enough to make a good difference.