Pigeon Guillemot in flight

[Geoff Newhouse]

This image was taken from kayak with the D500 and 200-500 f/5.6 lens at 500mm, f/5.6, 1/2000 and ISO 800.

[Colin Driscoll]

Interesting looking bird with those striking red feet. Looks a bit dark on my monitor though and the white shoulder on the wing looks just oof. Don't know the D500 performance but maybe a higher iso would have helped to get more dof.

[Isaac Grant]

Really nice extended wing and down stroke and love that it is so close to the water. Problem is that the image looks soft to me, especially the head. I don't mind that the wings look at bit soft as they are not as important as the head is in an image like this. Blacks under the tail are blocked.

[arash_hazeghi]

I like the pose but I agree the IQ isn't there, it looks soft and looks like heavy NR was applied with the feet sharper than the head. He had already passed you a bit, ideally a frame or two before this would have been ideal. I love the dark mood and the nice wing positions BTW

TFS

[Janet Heintz]

I really like the dark subtle colors and and pose of the bird.
I know how hard that can be to get an image from a kayak of a
moving bird. I think you did a pretty good job.

[Geoff Newhouse]

Thanks for the comments. To address a few of the critiques. Yes there is some wing blur in the wing except for the very tips. No NR has been applied to the image except the default setting in LR for Chroma NR of 25. The full image in LR shows the eye and beak fairly sharp. I realize it doesn't look as sharp on the posted version. Probably have to work on a better output sharpening method as I usually just use LR to export and set it to sharpen for screen at High.

[gail bisson]

I love the "mood " of this image. The wing position is terrific.
I just wish you had caught him 1 second prior to this frame so that he was flying into the frame.
I would do some NR to the BG and sharpen the head a bit more.
Gail