Image captured at Lake Morton in Lakeland, Florida. This is one of four species of swans at Lake Morton. I captured the original image in 2016, I keep going back to the image not satisfied with the rendering. This rendering I recently did. Interesting how how things change, I captured this image at 1/500 now most likely I would be using 1/3200 certainly there was room to raise the ISO. Comments and critique welcomed and appreciated. Thank you for viewing.
Nikon D7000
Nikon 80-400mm VR AF-S ED, camera and lens supported by a Oben carbon fiber monopod
1/500 F/5.6 Matrix Metering EV -1/3 ISO 320 Auto WB, image captured at 175mm (262mm 35mm Equivalent)
Post processed using Lightroom Classic, Photoshop CC 2023 and Topaz Denoise AI
Cropped slightly for composition and presentation
I agree with your ISO and shutter idea for the future but think this image looks really nice on the technical front regardless. My only issue is the composition; I'd lose some of the back and move the bird right to open up more space to the left. Right now he's looking into the short side of the frame. That's not a cardinal sin, but I think you need a really good reason to do it. We're not gonna notice the loss of 1.5 inches of back since our attention is drawn to the razor sharp face anyway.
Hi Joe ... nice subject and you have processed it quite nice all around .
The Swans that i have seen look darker ... but this might be light or the individual .
So i would go dark in the 3/4 tones without blocking the blacks .
Thanks everyone for viewing, commenting and suggesting improvements to the image. Here is a edit taking a little off the right side, adding canvas to the left side and darkening the three quarter tones as suggested.
Joe Przybyla
"Sometimes I do get to places just as God is ready to have somebody click the shutter"... Ansel Adams