Hoary-headed Grebe

[Glenn Pure]

There are three grebes (two different species) that seem to turn up at a small dam near my home around now each year. However, they have been eluding me for weeks. I've had two good sessions with them recently though where I've laid on the water's edge (avoiding the mud where possible). The birds have come in very close a few times and seem almost to be checking me out now. Anyway, I was there a few evenings ago as the sun was going down on a dead still clear day. The light and reflections of the dam's earth banks were gorgeous. I've managed about 600 frames in the two sessions I've had but due to the poor light that's forced me to a slow shutter speed, there are a lot of rejects. Crop is maybe a little under half the frame area. PS, I love the eyes on this species.

As always, thank you for looking and for any comments you are kind enough to share.

Technical: Canon 80D with EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM Mk II at 400mm handheld. Manual exposure 1/320 sec, f7.1, ISO 1600. Processed in Canon DPP 4 (digital lens optimiser @ 50, sharpness = 2.5, crop, lighting adjustments, reduced luminance NR) then exported 16 bit TIFF to Photoshop Elements with Neat Image NR plugin. Modest NR to bird and stronger NR to background. Bird only sharpened in PSE (Sharpness tool, remove Gaussian Blur, 0.3 pixels at 50%) after final size reduction.

[gail bisson]

This is gorgeous! If not a contest entry, I would clean up the water a bit.
I just love the way the BG blends and goes brighter into the FG . Colors are beautiful.
Grebe is sweet and the colors of the water really compliment this black/white grebe.
I. too, love the eye.
Exposure and POV are top-notch.
One of your nicest images IMHO,
Gail

[John Whaley]

Wow - A+, 100, gold star. Agree with Gail. One of the best I have in some time with beautiful light on the calm water.

[annmpacheco]

heavenly hoary headed! love the calmness this image evokes Glenn. What a lovely grebe, and yes that silver eye is gorgeous. The colors are also so beautiful to compliment the neutral grays. Wonderful image.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Beautiful colours and composition a lovely looking image. The grebe on close inspection does look a little noisy and as if it is a fairly large crop, having said that I like the image very much indeed.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Very appealing! Low angle, but not too low to lose the reflection. Great colours on the water. The grebe almost looks desaturated completely, I'd be tempted to add a tiny touch of warmth to it....but I am not familiar with this species, so perhaps that is how grey they are!

[Alex Becker]

Awesome low POV and colors. I would also clone out some of the specks in the water. Very cool looking bird I haven't seen before. Cool eye especially. TFS

[Bill Dix]

What a serenely beautiful frame of a grebe I've never seen. Ditto all the comments above, including cleanup of the water spots if not a contest entry.

[John Mack]

Love that color in the foreground water. Agree with what has all been said here.

[Glenn Pure]

Thank you all for your comments. The bird is described as grey-brown so I could warm it a little. Even so, I liked the neutrality of it in a sea of colour. As for the flecks on the water, I expected that most would not want them there. Removing them would make for a closer-to-perfect shot but it would be departing from nature. So I'm torn on that one and my ethics are usually to leave things like that untouched.

[Isaac Grant]

Beautiful light and composition Glenn. Water colors are just so nice. I'm fine with the specs in water. I do think the bird is just a little too muted in color if being viewed in such dramatically warm light.

[Geoffrey Montagu]

This is wonderful, Glenn. The light is spectacular, and your POV is ideal. A new Grebe for me, liking that eye, and the water droplets on the feathers.

Geoffrey




http://500px.com/geoffreymontagu

[Glenn Pure]

Thanks for the additional comments Isaac and Geoffrey. I should have explained, the bird is actually in shadow here hence muted colour.