Motif/Beaver with Branch

[Jackie Schuknecht]

Shot just before sunrise this morning on a very overcast day. I went looking for the juvenile night crowned heron, but this guy seemed very interested in what I was doing and came pretty close to investigate.
40D
100-400mm @400mm
-2/3 EV
f5.6
1/25s
Cloudy WB
Lens and camera balanced on my camera bag on a log.
400 ISO
Cropped from the original
Played around with the colour balance because the image was too blue plus some sharpening and curves.
Comments welcome. Thanks.

[Gus Cobos]

Excellent capture Lady Jackie. Love it...my only suggestion would be to run some noise reduction for the background...very well composed, and love the pano crop; it really locks all the attention and focus on this little guy...good show...:cool:

[Lance Peters]

Hi Jackie - I like the pano crop - looks very dark on my screen.

Made a couple of adjustments - lightened it up a little - sharpened the eye and applied a tad of sharpening overall.

:)

[Alfred Forns]

Agree it looks a little flat on the screen but that is one tough image to bring back !!! Played around with it and not happy with my results.

The re post looks better in areas but not there altogether. Do like the base image, good behavior and fine crop !!

[Harold Davis]

love the crop and was thinking something between yours and lances' as far as light. i like the low perspective too!!

[Katie Rupp]

Ditto what Harold said! I have a similar shot from earlier this summer except that mine is waaay too far away and nowhere near yours in quality. Nice one, Jackie.

[Jackie Schuknecht]

Thought I had a dark on dark exposure, thus went for the -2/3 exposure. Think I actually had a dark on middle and should have gone the other way. Would have made it lighter and probably sharper too. Another time:)

[Oscar Zangroniz]

Excellent behavior capture and details on your original image Jackie. Does look a little under on my monitor also.
Congrats