Cleared for Landing!!

[David Roach]

Juvenile joining evening shoreline roost at sunset. Created on Lover's Key at sunset. Comments and learnings welcome!
1DMKIIN 400DO ISO 640 F5.6@1/1000

[Ramon M. Casares]

Lovely light, pose and detail, it feels a bit overexposed, I would crop from the bottom to give a pano look and also to remove the other gulls. Congratulations!

[Daniel Cadieux]

Since most of the bottom gulls are bunched too tight up and are also looking away I agree with Ramone's crop suggestion. I'm OK with the exposure on the whites, but it looks like the blacks could go darker (easiest done via a levels adjustment).

[Lance Peters]

also agree with ramon suggestion - think it is the gulls at the bottom that is giving it the over exposed feel. :)

[David Roach]

The histogram from raw showed it to be just slightly overexposed (with a few pixels on the shoulder of the juvenile, for instance). It was exposed properly "to the right"; so I adjusted for the left side with levels and curves. Otherwise, moving the entire histogram slightly left makes the warm "yellow/golden" cast too intense, IMO. I liked the gathering roost as part of the story, but do understand compositional difficulties. As always, thanks for the learnings!