Roseate Spoonbills

[Joseph Przybyla]

I captured this image on a rainy overcast day at a stop along Blackpoint Wildlife Drive in Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, Merritt Island, Florida. Comments and critique welcomed and appreciated. Thank you for viewing.

Nikon D500
Nikon 500mm PF, camera and lens supported by a Oben carbon fiber monopod with a Wimberly MonoGimbal head
1/1600 F/5.6 Matrix Metering EV +2/3 ISO 1000 Auto ! WB, image captured at 500mm (750mm 35mm Equivalent)
Post processed in Lightroom Classic, Photoshop CC 2022 and Topaz Denoise AI
Cropped and canvas added for composition and presentation

[Paul Burdett]

Hi Joseph. Got to love this composition. I love the pastel colours here and the reflections. If it were mine i'd get rid of the black dots on the lower left corner...my eyes were drawn to them (thought it was dirt on my monitor...lol) In a perfect world the two Spoombills would be interacting with each other, instead of one facing away, but that's just me. Would love to see these birds one day...so much more colourful than our Spoonbills. TFS

[Dorian Anderson]

Soft colors are really lovely, Joe. My issue here is that the two birds don't really tell a story, and the IQ isn't gonna hold up it you try to crop down on one of them; the birds are looking a bit crunchy as is, especially the legs and reflections.

[Joseph Przybyla]

Hi Joseph. Got to love this composition. I love the pastel colours here and the reflections. If it were mine i'd get rid of the black dots on the lower left corner...my eyes were drawn to them (thought it was dirt on my monitor...lol) In a perfect world the two Spoombills would be interacting with each other, instead of one facing away, but that's just me. Would love to see these birds one day...so much more colourful than our Spoonbills. TFS

Hi Paul, thank you for viewing and commenting. It is believed that the spoonbills here get the pink/rose color from pigment in the crustaceans that they eat. I removed and dark spots in the lower left hand corner and will repost. Thanks again for being another set of eyes...

[Joseph Przybyla]

Soft colors are really lovely, Joe. My issue here is that the two birds don't really tell a story, and the IQ isn't gonna hold up it you try to crop down on one of them; the birds are looking a bit crunchy as is, especially the legs and reflections.

Hey Dorian, where are you my friend??? LOL. Thank you for viewing and commenting. When you commented on the crunchiness of the legs and reflections I knew where it came from... Topaz Sharpen AI. I tried and different workflow on this image and it didn't work well. I was concentrating on the head and neck I never looked at the legs and reflections, didn't see the forest because of the trees. I did the image over again using my normal workflow, here is a repost.

[Bill Dix]

Lovely feeling to this one, Joe. The repost is an improvement. I only wish for two things: that the left bird was preening his left wing instead of right; and that I had a chance to visit Merritt Island again.

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Joe ... the moody scene with the soft colors and tones is looking really good .
The subjects could have presented themselves a bit better ... but we do not get it all the time what we want .

Good that you revisited the image , after Dorian's comment ..... why would one use the plugin when the RP looks tons better than the OP ???!!!!

TFS Andreas