After branch placement, he shakes and fluffs

[David Roach]

EOS R EF400 DO I 2xtc II f11 1/200 ISO 2000

One last image of the cleaner nest from that dark/blustery morning. At this shutter speed, the beginning of his shake off has slight motion blur, which I like. In the following frames he covers her. My main question is did I successfully remove magenta cast? Cropped from horizontal and a little off the top as both had necks pulled. My vertical tries at this length almost always cut wings.
Thanks as always for valued inputs.

[Aditya Sridhar]

Nice frame, David. Sounds like you had some difficult light. I like the windswept plumage and the contrast between the birds and the background.

I find the details quite muddy, possibly due to motion blur or excessive NR. If the RAW is sharp, then I think you'd be able to squeeze more details out of the birds with some careful processing. I don't see a magenta cast, but I'd probably warm the image up a touch. More room at the bottom of the frame would also help as the legs are too close to the edge of the frame IMO. Hope that helps

TFS

[John Mack]

Nice to have almost identical poses. The setting is great. Nice to have that distant background as well.

[Dorian Anderson]

Color balance looks OK to me, and the birds stand out nicely from the underlying sticks. Their faces looked a bit smoothed out, perhaps from NR? Any reason you went with f/11 and ISO 2000 as opposed to f/8 and ISO 1000? I wouldn't think you'd need the extra DOF in this instance. Square-ish crop is a bit awkward as well. Curious how it would look with more traditional proportions.