Horned Grebe - non-breeding plumage

[Bruce Enns]

This is a new species for me, seen about 3 weeks ago at the beach on Okanagan Lake near Brandt's Marsh in Kelowna, B.C. A lovely bird that wasn't shy about a fairly close approach (for birds around here).

Canon 50D with Canon 100-400 L @ 400mm, ISO 400, 1/1000sec, f/5.6, +0EV

Comments and critique are very much appreciated...thanks for looking!

Cheers!
Bruce

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Hi Bruce.

Wonderful bird and perfect head angle. Light seems fine. What did you do in the background? Just seems like a strange type of cloning. Thanks for sharing.

[Robert Amoruso]

Bruce,

Like that you got low with him. I am on a laptop so perhaps I am not seeing it, but the whites appear to be lacking detail. I woulc crop some more off the top to accentuate the bird more.

[Randy Stout]

Bruce:

I definitely agree with Robert, I would crop off the top, at least to just below the blue in the LUC. The whites look pretty good on my monitor.

I might sharpen the head and esp. the eye one more time.

Thanks for sharing.

Randy

[Daniel Cadieux]

Nice subject, good low angle, and a nice little glance-back pose! Suggested improvements would certainly help. I'm finding the overall IQ not up to par though, was this a big crop (even though you mention it wasn't shy compared to others in your area)?

[Arthur Morris]

Nice head angle and good EXP.

Rotated & cropped. Reduced RED SAT and added CYAN to the REDS to tone down the eye. Sharpened pupil. Contrast mask to sharpen bird. Darkened the tiny, tiny pupil.

[Bruce Enns]

Thanks everyone for your comments, and thank-you Artie for your work on the repost...I will go back to the RAW file and rework it a bit with the edits mentioned. No Daniel, it wasn't a really large crop...maybe about 1/3.

Cheers!
Bruce