Hi all,
I went back to the location where I photographed a Comb-crested Jacana posted a while ago. This time I had better luck in terms of the Jacana not flying away from me. Hope you like it.
Neat bird, rather colourful! Huge feet look great trailing behind. The light was getting harsh, as evidenced by the heavy shadow on the belly near the wing but you did best you could considering that. A bit more separation between the bill-tip and the feather would have been a good thing. Australia is definitely a "bucket list" destination!
Hi Daniel. Thank you for the feedback. Yes, this was quite early in the morning, but at this time of year the sun is quite high in the sky at 7am. Let me know when you're heading "down under" (covid willing)...and maybe we can snap a few frames together. Cheers.
What a cool bird to get in flight! That blue skin around the eye is hella cool. Almost as good as the scaly feet. All that said, I think there are two technical issues. First, the saturation looks a bit overdone, particularly the green directly behind the bird. Second, the face and neck unnaturally smooth; they've almost assumed a painterly quality. I don't know if that's a result of aggressive NR, but you might be able to extract a bit of texture by backing off. But a really striking image!
Thanks so much Dorian and Dan.
Dorian: I did consider the BG saturation, but decided that I was fine with it, although I appreciate others thinking it's a bit too much. it's actually pretty close to how I saw it. I'll take another look at the head/neck issue. I do have another one that I'm going to post, so will take your suggestions onboard. Cheers.
Only just caught up with this ,the green is from the waterlilies on the pond which they spend their life walking on. And they certainly are that colour .Looks about right to me. Beak separation next time I bet.