Purple Gallinule feeding

[Elmar Westphal]

Wokadahatchee Wetlands, West Palm Beach, FL,
afternoon light shining though between boards of the handrail
1D2, 300/4, crop from horizontal picture, no time to grab the TC :(

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Welcome, Elmar. Great pose and action. It looks a bit soft on my monitor and I think the bird is too tight in the frame.

[Caroline Darmo]

Great colors here & cool pose on the bird. Wish for a little more light on the eye, & more room all around.

[Linda Robbins]

Hi Elmar, and welcome to BPN! I like the pose a lot...it would seem that those huge feet wouldn't be able to grip that reed so well! The head angle is good. A bit more room at the top and to the right if you have it would be good. Well seen and captured. Wish you had posted more complete techs.

[Arthur Morris]

Mr. Disagreement here. The exposure looks good here. With the light from our left, the head angle (sorry to the lovely Ms. Linda) is less than ideal for this image... With the head turned away from the light, the face is in shadow and that red eye is barely visible. Love the pose and the footsies.

later and love, artie

ps: Making a Quick Mask of the eye and lightening it would most likely help.

[Elmar Westphal]

Hi all and thanks for the warm welcome.
@Axel, Caroline & Linda: the crop resulted from printing for a 10x7 frame, adding room to the right definitely adds to the picture
@Artie: your comment made me think about processing the whole picture differently, reducing the contrast between the darker (and less well lit) head and the body. Lightening the eye did help, too.
@Linda: some more specs: ISO200, 1/500@f/5.6, curves adjusted in Lightroom with -85 for the lights (I exposed way to the right), -8 for the darks and some Highlight recovery to keep the feet from burning out.

Thanks to all for the input,

Elmar

[Del Cockroft]

It's amazing what a few tips from the experts can do to an image. Having implemented them, the re-post has greatly improved this image.

[Arthur Morris]

Elmar, Much better but a bit too light for me. But the face and eyes show a huge improvement. It still needs a bit more room below the bird's beak; should have been a VERT to start!

Here is another tip: when you encounter a histogram with images like this that show a bit of over-exposed pixels simply close the Levels box, do into Hue-SAT, select both the red and the yellow channels, and reduce the red and yellow SATs about 10-15 points. When the (usually Canon) cameras over-SAT these colors they lose detail. Reducing the SAT in those two colors restores detail.

later and love, artie

ps: Thanks Del for your kind words.

[Rosl Roessner]

I can hardly believe that the repost is form the same picture! Well done; wonderful colours!