Cleared To Land...

[Joseph Przybyla]

I captured this image of a Wood Stork at Circle B Bar Reserve in Polk County, Florida. If the winter and or spring is dry in Florida the ponds at Circle B Bar Reserve dry up trapping the crustaceans and fish. The wading birds arrive in great numbers to feed. This image was captured early morning as this Wood Stork was landing. Comments and critique welcomed and appreciated. Thank you for viewing.

Nikon D500
Nikon 80-400mm F/4.5-5.6 VRII AF-S ED, camera and lens supported by a monopod
1/1600 F/5.6 Matrix Metering EV +1 ISO 4000 Auto 1 WB, image captured at 400mm
Post processed in Lightroom Classic, Photoshop CC 2020 and Neat Image for noise reduction
Cropped from 2x3 to 16x9 for composition and presentation

[John Mack]

Love the incoming pose. The crop is nice, but i could see some more room below for the bird to land into. If that makes any sense.

[arash_hazeghi]

I like the landing pose and the light but the image is decidedly soft on my screen. feather details are just lacking not sure if it is the soft focus, soft lens or high ISO or a combination of all....

TFS

[Joseph Przybyla]

I like the landing pose and the light but the image is decidedly soft on my screen. feather details are just lacking not sure if it is the soft focus, soft lens or high ISO or a combination of all....

TFS

Hi Arash, thank you for viewing and commenting. I had another go at the image. The early morning light was pretty flat (just after sunrise but the sun had not reached this pond) so most likely the high ISO and not a lot of contrast.

[Brian Sump]

Joe, really appreciate the pose and action here.

It still appears pretty noisy for me. Also, if you did some cloning in the front left and middle of frame it looks like it's pretty apparent.

[Joseph Przybyla]

Joe, really appreciate the pose and action here.

It still appears pretty noisy for me. Also, if you did some cloning in the front left and middle of frame it looks like it's pretty apparent.

Thank you for viewing and commenting. I see the area, yes I did work there and will fix it tomorrow. Pretty hard to not have noise in low early morning light at ISO 4000. Maybe I can do better on that also. Thanks again Brian.

[arash_hazeghi]

it will tough to come up with a keeper with D500 and a zoom lens at ISO-4K, at least for me.

[Joseph Przybyla]

it will tough to come up with a keeper with D500 and a zoom lens at ISO-4K, at least for me.

Thanks Arash, I guess that's why I love working close with portraits. Better results...

[Joseph Przybyla]

Thanks everyone for viewing and commenting, much appreciated.