Loon with dual riders

[Brian Sartor]

Hi everybody. This is my first post here. I've been a member for a bit over a year and have enjoyed and learned a lot from viewing many of the great images posted here and the critiques provided. Decided it was time (overdue) for me to jump in.

I created this image a couple of weeks ago on a nice, calm, early Sunday morning on a northern Minnesota lake. Taken with the Canon 500mm resting on a bean bag. This is a slight? crop (about 85% of original).

Canon 40D, 500mm, ISO 400, f8, 1/125,

[Doug Brown]

Congrats on a solid first image Brian! The two chicks look great on the parent's back, in particular the one with just its eye visible. The water looks gorgeous. About the only thing I'd like is to have a better profile view of the parent. Look forward to seeing more of your images.

[Aidan Briggs]

Nice first post! Lovely light, colors, and setting. I like the chick looking out from under the parents wing. I would also like the head to be angled more away from you. The bird looks slightly soft on my monitor, so you might try another pass of USM

[Grace Scalzo]

What a way to start posting! THis is lovely, Brian. Full of pretty color and interest with the two riders. I think that the amount of space on top is not all necessary and I might try cropping to right below the horizontal bright line to help keep the eye directed on the scene. Looking forward to more of your images!

[Stu Bowie]

What an amazing image to announce your entry Brian. I like the angle, light, detail and colours in this. The little guy peering out at the back takes this over the top for me. Congrats, and keep them coming.

[Arthur Morris]

Long overdue. And a big time welcome to posting. And thanks for your membership support. The image is loverly (anybody know who said "loverly?"), and you did really well with the EXP considering that the light was from the pretty hard right. The high-riding chick is fantastic and as is the peeking chick. Better than Peking Duck for sure. I think that I can improve the JPEG just a bit. Be right back.

[Arthur Morris]

Changes? Worse? Better?

[Mike Lentz]

Welcome here, Brian! Glad to see you posting bud!
You already know I like this image! I'm just sad I wasn't with you on this morning.

Arties re-post is very nice. The eye lightening, tonal contrast & sharpening works for me.

[Arthur Morris]

No curve but you are on the right track.

[Brian Sartor]

Thanks everyone for the comments and suggestions!

Artie, I appreciate your re-work. Looks like some work on the eyes and maybe some added contrast? I definitely like the changes with the possible exception of the adult's pupil. I am thinking it might be a tad too much and am tempted to try somewhere in between the orig and your version. Thanks!

[Arthur Morris]

YAW Brian, Contrast added via Selective Color--added 4 points of Black to the blacks and the Neutrals. Sharpened all the faces. Borrwed 1/2 and eye from the peeking chick for the high riding chick. One new thing that I do when working on pupils and irises is to keep the layers intact so that if the pupil looks to cookie-cutterish I can go back and reduce the opacity of that layer and thus reduce the effect.

My excuse: not many pixels to work with in the JPEG Let's see some more!