Taken a last month at our water purification plant where a small breeding population has established itself. No crop, I extended the canvas in front of the bird using Content Aware Fill. Processed in DxO Raw2, LR and PS. Struggled a bit to control the whites.
Camera Model: NIKON Z 9
Date/Time: 2022:12:26
Shutter speed: 1/5000 sec
Aperture: 5.6
Exposure mode: Manual
Metering mode: Multi-segment
ISO: 1600
Lens: AF-S NIKKOR 500mm f/5.6E PF ED VR
Beautiful ventral view, Chris. Pose and color and great. I can see what you mean about the whites; they look both grayed and blue to me. The legs also look really red, so I might think about dialing that channel back a bit. But a very striking image regardless.
Hi Chris ...
lovely pose of the subject and the clean colorful BG does look good , albeit i mkight be tempted to go lower a touch on the color intensity . Sharpness does look good
For me you have some tonal issues in the subject ... the whites do look featureless and are too much on the cold side , whereas the mid tones do look quite light in tone ... the dark tones do look dense . I would try to balance things out within the subject .... not sure if you could work that out with your skills in PS .