Bosque Greater Roadrunner

[Jeff Waugh]

I just returned from Bosque Del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in San Antonio, NM. I photographed this Greater Roadrunner on the Marsh Loop's West side. This image was not cropped and the subject was approximately 20' away. Photographed with a Canon 1D Mk IV, 500mm f/4 IS lens and 1.4 TC, ISO 400, f/10, 1/160 sec., Evaluative metering, Aperture Priority, +2/3 EV.

[gail bisson]

Welcome Jeff!
An interesting first post with lots of possibilities!
Great BG and nice low POV. Good DOF for the head and body.
I would crop this as a vertical and get rid of the OOF tail.
I would decrease the brightness by playing with the levels slider and that will give you some warmer tones as well.
I would also try to recover some of the whites that are blown.
Looking forward to more posts from you,
Gail

[Nick Palmieri]

Hey Jeff, This is a cool looking bird, I also like the low POV and the BG. I think I would crop tighter as I think the tail is more of a distraction. I would also reduce the brightness caused by the strong light from the right.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Welcome to BPN Jeff!! I love the down-the-barrel pose. The side-lighting works well, but I think reducing the overall exposure would give you a more dramatic result. At the very least toning down the brights would be beneficial. Comp-wise this is a tough one, and cropping some at left would help balance things out. I doesn't need to be a true vertical, but perhaps coming in to about an inch inside the body at left...this would leave in at least part of the base of the tail. A few options out there to explore. I'm sure you had lots of opportunities at Bosque...looking forward to more!

[Jeff Waugh]

Thanks everyone very much for your comments. I originally cropped the image to a square format that included only a small portion of the tail feathers, and I liked this a lot. Then I second guessed myself and included the whole bird, as I felt that the tail feathers (of a Roadrunner in particular) are important to include in the image. I do think either the vertical format or the original square crop are more pleasing to the eye, so I will take all of your suggestions and go with that.

I totally agree about the brightness and some of the blown whites. What is funny, is that the histogram showed no clipping in the highlights - go figure!? Anyways, I dialed back the brightness, and cloned out the blown whites, as I couldn't recover any of them. So, not perfect, but better. Thanks again everyone!

[gail bisson]

Repost is much better.
Good job on the cloning,
Gail