Black skimmer

[Sidharth Kodikal]

Canon 1D4, 840mm
1/3200, f6.3, ISO 400
Manual, handheld

~85% of FF. Evicted a gull head entering the frame at the bottom.

C & C welcome.
Thanks

[David Salem]

Great looking skimmer frame Sid. Nice flight angle and head angle and a good look at the eye that can easily get lost. I like the hanging feet and the colorful BG as well. Sweet shot.

[Shawn Zierman]

Sweet light. Looks like you achieved some great subject size in the frame, as the details and image quality are excellent. I see many images of this species skimming and a fair number that are not eye level images like this...seems like you were shooting on a little rise (?) and you achieved a great background.

[Geoff Newhouse]

Great image...nice light, love the 2-tone BG, great wing and head position...

TFS
Geoff

[gail bisson]

This is really nice Sid.
Love the wings up pose, the great BG and perfect exposure.
I wonder if you can tease out a bit more detail in the blacks of the primaries. certainly not a big issue for me but worth exploring in PP if you can,
Gail

[Andreas Liedmann]

Lovely flight shot Sid .
Killer Bg with lovely colors , agree with Gail regarding the blacks , they do look bit too dense for me , but you have well controlled whites .

Nice work , TFS Andreas

[dankearl]

Nice Sid, the 2 tone BG is attractive. the bird looks like it could be sharpened a tad more...

[Grace Scalzo]

Love the feather in the beak- an interesting detail. Agree that the blacks, esp at the top of the far wing could be opened up.

[Sidharth Kodikal]

Thanks folks. Appreciate the feedback. Any hints on tweaking the blacks? Shadow-highlights tool in PS? or is there some other recommended way?

[Sidharth Kodikal]

Sweet light. Looks like you achieved some great subject size in the frame, as the details and image quality are excellent. I see many images of this species skimming and a fair number that are not eye level images like this...seems like you were shooting on a little rise (?) and you achieved a great background.

Thanks Shawn. I went as low as possible to get some color and a smoother bg. The shots from a higher elevation were giving me water BG with lots of ripples (might post later).

[christopher galeski]

very nice flight shot,like the feather in the bill,like the BG,some very nice detail.TFS.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Sid, great 'V' shape to the wings from this flight pose, not to mention the perfect angle towards you. Well exposed on the whites, blacks mentioned, and I do like the two tone BG.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Great looking bird here, and the feather on the bill is a pretty neat detail not to be overlooked! Super BG and the colours look good. As for the blacks, not sure what you are using for raw conversion but I feel that the "shadows" slider in LR (or ACR) works really well most of the time. You can also tweak with some bit of selective dodging in PS, but that needs to be done carefully as noise and/or other processing evidence can come out quickly if not done judiciously on such dark blacks with this tool.

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Love the BG mate.
Really awesome pose and details.
Well done!
TFS

[Satish Ranadive]

Excellent flight shot, Sidharth. Beautiful colours, great details and nice composition.

Regards,
Satish.