Pied Billed Grebe, evening light

[Jon Pugmire]

Canon 50D, 70-200 2.8L IS USM II with 2.0 extender
1/200, f/7.1, ISO 200
Ridgefield Wildlife Refuge 11/7/14

LR, PS5.1, mostly shadow/highlight work with some sharpening on the bird, surface blue on the background/water

[Mike Poole]

A nice look back pose captured here and it looks like you had some nice light to work with. Maybe consider toning down some of the brighter parts around the lower half of the head, and I think maybe pushing the ISO a bit more to get a faster shutter speed may have helped

[Diane Miller]

Very nice! You got a nice eye in the reflection! I think you got a sharp image here (only you can tell, at 100% view) but in the future I'd go for a higher ISO and faster SS. I agree with Mike about the brighter parts -- maybe just bring down the Highlights slider if you have a recent version of LR that has it.

If it were mine I'd crop about halfway down into the green at the top, and some from the left.

[Jon Pugmire]

A nice look back pose captured here and it looks like you had some nice light to work with. Maybe consider toning down some of the brighter parts around the lower half of the head, and I think maybe pushing the ISO a bit more to get a faster shutter speed may have helped

I toned them down a lot, just to get where it's at, I'll look at giving it another round. I hate pushing the 50D (please Santa can I have a 7D mark II for Christmas?) even to ISO 400 if I can help it, I was in my car blind with the lens resting on a bean-bag (just the ordinary kind). Usually these guys pop under water as soon as they see me, but this one was perfectly happy to pose for me for 10 minutes or so. I was able to work at lower SS than I would typically and get a few that were sharp. The hardest part was moving the car back and forth to keep some foreground grasses from getting in the way.

[Jon Pugmire]

If it were mine I'd crop about halfway down into the green at the top, and some from the left.

I'm probably too attached to water elements, I really like the circle wavelets and have a hard time parting with them.

[Diane Miller]

I can't argue with that! I was thinking it would put the bird off-center but I don't mind centered elements in some cases. You're right that in this case the wavelets do balance the bird.

[keith mitchell]

Jon looks like you have got some very good advice above.

Keith.

[Iain Barker]

Jon

I agree with the comments above especially Diane about moving the subject more off centre. I think with a little more work you will have a really nice image here. Just to pick up on your comment about foreground grasses. Where they do appear like the one to the left and the one running up to the bird from the bottom of the of the image, I find the brightness they have a little distracting. I think that if you could tone those down slightly that may help. I think you would be able to do that with some masking in photoshop.

Cheers
Iain

[Diane Miller]

Yes, you could tone them down and change the color to more of a blue, to help conceal them. A masked Curve (or Levels) will do the trick. And the mask can be tweaked after the adjustment to make it match perfectly.

[Jon Pugmire]

Repost. Changed the crop. That got rid of the OOF grass on the left. Used the adjustment brush in LR to hide the two OOF grass blades underneath the bird and further tone down the highlights in the face. Exported to PS for sharpening on the bird and NR on the water.

[Diane Miller]

Nice! The bird really jumps out now!