I photographed this African Darter a while ago at a bird sanctuary in Pretoria.
I quite liked this pose and went for a crop that would accentuate it. The BG is calm water. I removed some reflections of nearby branches from the upper left corner of the water. Furthermore I used a levels and linear burn mask to tone down the hot spots on the upper left neck and the beak.
I specifically went for this squarish crop to get a line from top left where the neck bends to bottom right with the beak pointing that way. The bird was preening and in this movement stretched its neck in this weird way.
Techs:
Canon 1000D with 100-400mm L IS USM @ 400mm
f8.0 @ 1/640 SS @ ISO-400
Mork-o-rama, There is a light blue halo around the upper parts of the bird. The head is turned a bit too far away. The crop is somewhat awkward. More off the top and a lot more off the left would tighten it up considerably. Way cool neck and a good EXP.
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Mork=o-rama, I did not say a word about cropping from the right or the bottom.... This is the crop that I suggested. When working with the image I noted that image quality was poor and that the eye was not sharply focused (because sharpest focus was on the neck and the head was angled away, thus farther from the point of focus than it would have been with a proper head angle...)
BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.
BIRDS AS ART Online Store: we will not sell you junk. 35 years of long lens experience. Please e-mail with gear questions.
Check out the new SONY e-Guide and videos that I did with Patrick Sparkman here. Ten percent discount for BPN members,
Artie thanks for the critique - helps me improve every time. I must confess that I had already posted this image and then read the Head Angle Police thread, so I knew that one was coming. :)