wood stork with nest material

[Bill Millhouser]

I photographed this wood stork returning to a rookery in the Braden River, Florida in late April of this year.
- Canon 1DX, ISO 640, manual exp with spot metering
- Canon 100-400mm II lens @ 400mm
- 1/4000sec, f 6.3
Approximately 50% crop removing mangroves and birds in foreground and minor exposure and tonal adjustments

[Marina Scarr]

Welcome to BPN, Bill, and congratulations on your first Avian post! You've actually made this wood stork look quite graceful. Love how both wings are curled up, the pink feet are dangling, there's some iridescence showing in the feathers, and this bird pops quite well against the slate blue BG. I see there is some natural catch light in the bird's eye. You might think about lightening that up just a little bit to give the bird even more life.

Looking forward to seeing more of your images, Bill!! Thanks for posting.

[dankearl]

Really nice pose you got here, and nice sharpness and exposure as well...
I might do a full on square crop as yours is close enough.
Well done.

[Sidharth Kodikal]

Lovely exposure, pose and details. I like the dangling feet and the nesting material adds a lot. What was your ISO?
Welcome to BPN, Bill, and looking forward to more from you.

[Bill Millhouser]

Lovely exposure, pose and details. I like the dangling feet and the nesting material adds a lot. What was your ISO?
Welcome to BPN, Bill, and looking forward to more from you.

The ISO was 640, a little higher than need be for this shot, but we were also photographing birds deep in shadows.

[Lorant Voros]

I think this is the first wood stork image with nesting material I have ever seen. Very graceful pose indeed, well exposed and all. I might give it a little more room all around. Welcome to BPN.

[David Salem]

A very nice looking incoming shot of this guy. The slate/blue color of the sky makes the stork sand out well and the detail and exposure on this look great. I like the tighter square comp for this one. Well done and welcome to BPN!!

[Bill Millhouser]

Welcome to BPN, Bill, and congratulations on your first Avian post! You've actually made this wood stork look quite graceful. Love how both wings are curled up, the pink feet are dangling, there's some iridescence showing in the feathers, and this bird pops quite well against the slate blue BG. I see there is some natural catch light in the bird's eye. You might think about lightening that up just a little bit to give the bird even more life.

Looking forward to seeing more of your images, Bill!! Thanks for posting.

Thank you Marina,

I will lighten up the catchlight in the eye as you suggest. I shows more clearly on the raw file.

[Bill Millhouser]

A very nice looking incoming shot of this guy. The slate/blue color of the sky makes the stork sand out well and the detail and exposure on this look great. I like the tighter square comp for this one. Well done and welcome to BPN!!

Thank you all for positive feed back. I will look at different cropping options as several of you suggested.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Bill, a big welcome to BPN, and your first post looks great. Well exposed on the whites, and I do like the iridescence showing on the wings. Nesting material is always a bonus - well captured.

[Richard Flack]

Welcome to BPN Bill, super image of this stork, love the pose, nicely exposed and cool to have some nesting material to round it off. Well done. Look forward to seeing more!

[Doug Brown]

It's about time Bill! Welcome! The whites are nicely controlled and your photo highlights the bird's iridescence quite well. I might do some selective sharpening of the head as your best focus seems to be on the legs. Now where are your Costa Rica pics?

[Bill Millhouser]

It's about time Bill! Welcome! The whites are nicely controlled and your photo highlights the bird's iridescence quite well. I might do some selective sharpening of the head as your best focus seems to be on the legs. Now where are your Costa Rica pics?

Hi Doug, Good to hear from you. You are right about the focus; on the raw file the legs are the sharpest point of focus and the head is a bit soft. I will fix that!

No question I have many good shots from my 3 trips to Costa Rica with you and Greg. However, over the last few years I have realized how important it is to capture the right moment or how you can tell story through the photograph. So, i need to go back through my pictures again and pick out a few of the best and really work on them. BTW, I did enjoy the pictures from your recent trip to Costa Rica including the one of you and Greg working on new places to visit. We will get back to Costa Rica with you soon.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Marina is right - that is a graceful pose from the stork! Neat that it has nesting material. The comp works quite well, something rare with squares comps for me. Did you need to light the near wing? Seems like there is a bit of noise there that is not found anywhere else.

Welcome to BPN!!

[Bill Millhouser]

Marina is right - that is a graceful pose from the stork! Neat that it has nesting material. The comp works quite well, something rare with squares comps for me. Did you need to light the near wing? Seems like there is a bit of noise there that is not found anywhere else.

Welcome to BPN!!

Thank you for your comment. I did not light the rear wing, but do agree that it looks noisy-- I will see if I can correct for that.

[Bill Millhouser]

Thank you all for the very warm welcome to BPN. I appreciate all of your very helpful comments; they definitely provide me with ways to improve the image.
Cheers, Bill Millhouser

[arash_hazeghi]

looks pretty nice with the light and the nesting material. I agree with looser crop and also sharpening the head selectively a tad more

TFS

[Grace Scalzo]

Welcome to BPN! Excellent way to start. You have some terrific suggestions above to put the final tweaks on this photo. It is interesting, has nice feel of movement, and color. I am looking forward to more of you work.

[Satish Ranadive]

Every thing has been said. Joined the party late.
Magnificent image.Great show.

Regards,
Satish.