Willet

[Mike Poole]

A willet giving me a little look back, taken earlier this year in the lagoon at North Beach

Canon 5d3
500mm f4is
ISO 400
1/2000th f5.6

Thanks for all previous help and comments

Mike

[Jonathan Ashton]

Nice pose , just maybe a little too bright in the whites? I like the composition with the head turn.

[Ross Taylor]

Hi Mike,

I quite like this shot for the waves, the faint orange band at the top, and of course the look-back pose of the bird.

It seems to me a subtle more sharpening may help the apparent IQ, assuming this was cropped minimally or not at all.

Thanks for sharing!

Ross

[Steve Kaluski]

Perhaps one of your best Mike, very nice colour palette and overall comp, but agree with Jon that the whites in part, look a bit hot, but an easy fix. Nice work.

TFS
Steve

[David Cowling]

I like the look back pose and the feather detail on the back of the bird. The waves add extra interest to the comp. Agree with the comments on sharpening and hot whites.

[Mike Poole]

Had a revisit with some of the suggestions - any better?

[gail bisson]

The thumbnail doesn't do this image justice.
I like the soft color palette and the distant shoreline in the BG.
I don't see much difference in the whites in your repost- did you cook them completely in camera or were you able to recover the whites and then sharpened them which could cause the whites to blow out again.
I also think you sharpened the repost a bit too much. I would reduce the overall sharpening in the repost and exclude the whites in any sharpening.
You have made a very plain bird look sweet and I think this is worth reworking,
Gail

[Mike Poole]

Back to the drawing board - but that's what's so good about this place!

Cheers everyone

[Steve Kaluski]

Back to the drawing board

Why Mike?

If you put both up together in PS you can clearly see the changes, however perhaps it's the route you took may not be ideal for the revisions, but very quickly with a Luminosity adjustment in the Lights, plus a Curves adj for the Lights you can easily bring back the detail originally captured, even in the sRGB file with only 256 colours. Therefore the RAW would be a walk in the park Mike, no need to start over again. To me the OP only needed a slight tweak to elevate the original capture.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Mike, lovely low perspective here, and what a great head turn. The browns of the Willet, and the blues of the water, work well together. I do like the hint of the small waves in the water. I feel a tough of selective sharpening on your OP, and you have a real winner.