Feed me please!

[Randy Stout]

Imaged on northern Michigan Lake, from boat. I got the impression that the parents were getting a little bit tired of feeding junior!

Nikon D300
70-300 VR
f/7.1
ISO 640
450 mm (crop factor)
20% crop for composition

The breasts on both birds are a bit hot, but I like the interatction.

Very interested in any comments, esp. on composition. I wish the viewing angle was a bit lower, but they were quite close in, and I couldn't get any lower.

Thanks for looking and commenting.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Great interaction and I agree with your self-critique. If the original is RAW then you should be able to recover the highlights. I would sharpen the birds a bit more and if you have add some room at the right.

[Randy Stout]

Thanks Axel:

Yes, shot in raw. I do have a bit more area to the right available, but was aftraid I was getting the birds too centered. I actually liked it better as shot, but try to fight my tendency to center the image.

I am still struggling a bit with sharpening for posting to the web. The original raw file is pretty sharp, without any extra sharpening, but the resizing and conversion to jpeg seems to degrade the image sharpness.

I may try it again with another round of sharpening.

Thanks so much for the input.

Randy