Incoming cormorant

[Connie Mier]

Bird rookery on Biscayne Bay, near Miami Florida.
Sony a700, 70-400mm Sony f4/f5.6
1/1000. ISO400, f5.6, +1EV
PP in LR2: some crop, selective sharpening and brightening on face, extra brightening of eyes, added a bit of fill flash overall. Looked like some blue aberration around wings and tried to remove it. It seemed to come from the motion blur of wings. I also added temp to try to remove the blue aberration.
Connie

[Harshad Barve]

what the bird, Cormorant, his looks are from hollywood Sci-Fi
Lovely image , I liked it as posted
TFS

[Desmond Chan]

The pose looks good, but I still would like to see more separation between the feet and the tail. As presented, on my monitor, the belly area look too dark with no hint of any details. Perhaps this image could use some shadows/highlights adjustment?

[Doug Brown]

I like the incoming pose and the green eyes. You stopped the action nicely. You're definitely a little underexposed, probably by 2/3 of a stop. The problem is that I wouldn't go much slower on the shutter speed and I'm not sure how your camera performs at ISOs above 400. If 640 or 800 isn't a problem, I'd definitely bump the ISO and go for more + EC with dark birds against a blue sky.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

The incoming pose is pretty cool, particularly the eyes. I wish the underside of the bird's right wing were better visible and agree that even more positive EC would have been good.

[Daniel Cadieux]

I agree that more EC would be beneficial, but at the same time the harsh light (and it's angle) didn't help you here. I wish the wing to our right was open more, but the overall pose is pretty neat. In LR there are sliders to help with CA...may be worth a try.

[Connie Mier]

Thanks everyone, that's the kind of feedback I want. I did play around quite a bit with higher ISO settings and was pleased with the relative low noise. As the morning wore on, I settled with 400. I was going back and forth between cormorants and cattle egrets and found that I got into a routine of changing shutter speed from 1/3200 to 1/1000. Nevertheless, I agree with all on all counts and will try a bit more highlighting on the underside. As for the pose, guess I'll have to try next time!
Connie

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Despite the underexp it still rocks. Love the pose and you'll get a better one next time! Being out there is half the fun! Thanks for sharing. :)