Roseate Spoonbill Take-off

[gail bisson]

I thought I would take a break from West Coast images and move to East Coast images. Taken shortly after sunrise.
Canon 1 DX
600 mm
F 8 SS 1/3200 ISO 800
Minimal PP- usual LR sliders, crop to 75% FF, NR to BG, levels, DE at 2% to bird, USM to JPEG. I think I dodged a black area in the BG (worked on this image months ago)
I am posting this at 1200 pixels because the RAW and TIFF are somewhere on an external hard drive.
Comments and critiques always appreciated and learned from with thanks,
Gail

[Randy Rimland]

great separation, BG blur and colors everywhere, even the birds red is in the water

[Jonathan Ashton]

Beautiful image with excellent focus on the head, gorgeous colours, my only criticism is one which I am sure you anticipated, i.e. I wish I could see some/part of the feet.

[Randy Stout]

Gail:

The light and nicely balanced background, coupled with the timing, makes it work well for me.

I like the comp, and the sense of impending movement from the pose.

Cheers

Randy

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Love the comp! Love the pose, the BG and the colours. A beautiful image Gail!

[Jay Ing]

Very nice. Like the light, full extension and color.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Gail, well timed for the pre-take off, and great feather detail on the raised wings. Good HA, love the light and colours, and nicely separated from the BG. As he is in the water, Im fine the feet are not visible.

[Juan Fernandez]

Very nice detail and great color. My only critique would be to blend or dodge some of the dark spots in the background, specially the one right in front of his beak.

[Noel Heustis]

Gail - As the others have said, it's a beautiful image. My favorite parts of this image are the wing position, the head angle/ eye contact, and as Randy and Stu pointed out...the timing and anticipation that went into the shot. Thank you for sharing.