Osprey Carrying Fish

[Loi Nguyen]

I took this image at Huntington Beach State Park, SC last November during a short window when the sun was out early morning. I think the image was slight under-exposed, perhaps by 1/3 EV, as there is a little bit of noise on the underside of the wing. I toyed with both a horizontal and almost square crop, but not happy with it. So please let me know what you think of this vertical crop. I bumped up the exposure slide in LR4 by 1/3 EV, increased shadow and dark levels a little, apply punch and contrast, and then darkened and increased the saturation of the sky a little bit.

1DX
500f4 II + 1.4X II
1/4000
f5.6
ISO-1600
Handheld
Evaluative Metering, + 1 2/3 EV bias compensation

Cropped about 20% off the bottom and 1/3 left and 1/3 right

thank you.

Loi

[Arthur Morris]

Looks quite excellent to me. SH with a good EXP. Love the pose, the angled-towards-you flight, and the fish. Do you know the species of the fish? Love the cloud too. Can you post the full frame image? IQ looks great.

[Nick Palmieri]

Really nice flight pose. The catch is a nice bonus. Exposure looks good. Think I would prefer more room in front.

[Miguel Palaviccini]

Would like to see the horizontal crop that you toyed with. I rather enjoy this vertical crop, though.

[Raymond Lee]

Excellent capture! The bird is nicely exposed. The details are fantastic. I prefer a more horizontal crop than a vertical. The blue sky also seems a bit grainy on my screen.

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Lovely raptor and great thing it has a pray! Good sky colour and sharp details.

[Loi Nguyen]

Thank you all for your comments. It made my day after a long day at work :}.

Artie, what is SH as in your "SH with a good EXP"? Kind of a dumb question but I have to ask. No, sorry I don't know the fish species, will have to ask around. Please see the full frame image here.

Thank you!

[Satish Ranadive]

Excellent flight pose with nice head turn and sharpness you have captured.
Would go for horizontal composition.

Regards,
Satish.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Loi, good show of the near wing, and we have a good view of how the Osprey is holding onto his catch. Comp wise, just a personal thing, Im finding the comp a bit too squarish, so adding to the right will work for me.

[vishaljadhav]

I missed this one before,
Lovely image , the bird has wonderful details on it so does its catch.