Horned Grebe

[Terry Olmsted]

Taken at the Edmonds Marina, Edmonds, Washington on Dec. 30 in moderate light. The boats provided reflected colors in the relatively calm protected water. The breast feathers were a challenge. I used a little selective editing to bring down the brightness and retain a bit of detail.

Canon 40D 400mm 5.6L 1/1000s f5.6 ISO 1000 AI focus partial metering EC 0

[Tony Whitehead]

Nice pose and details, especially that eye. I would crop a little from below to lower the bird in the image. I would back off the sharpening a little and mask it from the BG as it has accentuated the ISO 1000 noise significantly.

[Aidan Briggs]

Nice find. I love that eye. I agree with Tony's comments about sharpening. Judging by your shutter speed ISO 1000 wasn't needed. This image could also use a bit of CW rotation.

[Terry Olmsted]

Thanks very much for the helpful comments, Tony and Adian. I agree with your comments and will work on it.
Terry

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Nice find and eye contact. I agree with Tony's suggestions and would add that it has a blue color cast.

[Terry Olmsted]

Thanks for pointing the color balance issue out. I think I'll go back to the original RAW file and rework the image. Thanks for the critiques. They are very helpful.