Redhead Runner

[Brian Sump]

I was fighting heat shimmers all morning but glad this one came through. Chose this crop after trying several different ones as it showed the trail well as well as where he's headed.

Took quite a bit of coaxing to get colors and details right so hopefully it works for you as well :-)

D850
600mm + 1.4x
HH
ISO 2000
1/2000
f5.6

LR and PS, also tried a NIK layer this time. Reduced greens in water and touched up, brought yellow color cast down on bird, curves adjust and noise reduction.

[arash_hazeghi]

I like the dynamic pose, almost looks like running on the water. I do like the angle in this one since unlike the killdeer we can see both eyes clearly. I wish the wings were raised a bit higher, the splash is great. Head and chest are a bit grainy (perhaps too much sharpening, looks like some work was done there?). for birds coming right at you, you want faster shutter speed (1/3200 sec) but the light was low here and the D850 starts to struggle at iso 2K already. this is really a D5 shot but you did well

TFS

[Daniel Cadieux]

Another fun frame! I think you composed it well. the face, neck, and part of the base of the wings near the face have noticeable noise though. Yes, colours look good to me.

[Brian Sump]

Arrggh. I needed a new cord for the NEC so processed the last round of edits and sharpening to the head on my Macbook. Looks like I went too far :-/

Will reprocess and post when I have the monitor back up

[John Mack]

Love how you can see the individual splashing from the feet. I like the direct eye contact and pose.

[Brian Sump]

I like the dynamic pose, almost looks like running on the water. I do like the angle in this one since unlike the killdeer we can see both eyes clearly. I wish the wings were raised a bit higher, the splash is great. Head and chest are a bit grainy (perhaps too much sharpening, looks like some work was done there?). for birds coming right at you, you want faster shutter speed (1/3200 sec) but the light was low here and the D850 starts to struggle at iso 2K already. this is really a D5 shot but you did well

TFS

Thank you. Yeah I wasn't bumping above ISO 2000 so took what I could get.