Great Blue Punk

[Leroy Laverman]

I took this one last fall on my way in to work. This bird was perched on a cliff overlooking the Pacific with the morning light strongly backlighting. A gust of wind picked up the feathers. I'm wondering if I should lighten or darken the bird more as I couldn't decide which looked best. This is a crop from the full frame. I have all of the body in the original but the feet were blocked by the weeds it was standing in so I choose a portrait crop instead. Your thoughts are most appreciated on this. Thanks

Technical info:
Nikon D80
Nikon 80-200 1:2.8 (at 125mm)
1/200 sec f/6.3
spot metering, on camera flash used, +2/3 eV exposure compensation.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Nice backlit portrait and BG. I might tone down the whites on the edges that look a bit overexposed.

[Arthur Morris]

Looks pretty good to me. Was the flash a pop-up flash or simply "on the camera." I suspect the latter. The image stood up well to a huge crop.

[Leroy Laverman]

This was the pop-up flash as the bigger flash (SB-50DX) is not compatible with the i-TTL standard (thanks Nikon).

[Maxis Gamez]

Very nice back light. You did well with the flash technique. I would like to see a little more room in front of the bird.

[Arthur Morris]

Hey Leroy, Pretty good with the pop-up flash. I need to try using the pop-up flash on the 40D at close range. It's been so long for me without a pop-up flash that I forgot it was even there!

[Judy Lynn Malloch]

Lovely image with very nice backlighting and composition. Neat to hear about the pop-up flash !! Thankls for sharing.

[Paul Pagano]

This looks good as is, Leroy. I wouldn't make it any darker.

[Dieter Schaefer]

Have been looking at this for quite a while - like the composition and don't think any additional space is needed in front of the bird. Image really held up well after the huge crop. I am tempted to go a little lighter.