Female Hoodie "Stretching Way Back"

[James Salywoda]

Hooded Merganser
Southern, California

This was a shot I took a few years ago when we had a pair of Hooded Mergansers at one of our local parks
I had to work several things in this image to save it the male was resting close to her so I cloned him out and also
a few hot spots on the belly were cloned out.:) I sure hope that I find some of these birds again this winter.

Nikon D200 AFS 600 F4 1.4 TC

Thanks For Looking
Jim

[Harshad Barve]

Oh man , what a beautiful image , lovely settings , great exposure and details
TFS

[Mital Patel]

whata softy here. thats really gr8 james. i wish one day i could make images of waterfowl as its really die hard situation to grab them in camera even with 700mm at my location.

[Ben Egbert]

Having tried my hand at cloaning birds out of water, I am impressed with that aspect alone. Beautiful shot, great eye contact and love the pose. Love the detail around teh head and eyes.

[Danny J Brown]

Jim - Beautiful composition, exposure, background and most of all subject. I never get tired of looking at hoodies. Love the tail up position, especially. Water really looks great as well as it has a cool transition into the bokeh on this one. Nicely done, my friend.

P.S. Thanks for giving me a diversion from sitting here trying to learn CS4. It was my goal over the Thanksgiving break and its starting to make my head hurt!!

[John Ippolito]

Excellent image, Jim. Everything about this is appealing. Great texture, pose, light, colors, and a stunning BG. Great job on the cloning also. I would never have suspected. Top notch Job!

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

This is simply awesome James! Love the hairdo, wing flap and the rings in the water all around. Comp, light, exposure are ALL PERFECT mate! :)

[David Hemmings]

This is superb James, the pose and colors are fantastic as is the pov.

[Roger Lauzon]

Bonjour James,

only one word... SUBLIME!

Roger

[John Blumenkamp]

Fantastic James... love the light, detail and great wing position. The small water droplet adds a cool extra element to the image in my opinion.

[Nancy A Elwood]

Jim, really, really well done!! The comments above say it all. It is such a pleasing image to view!!

[Clement Francis]

Its perfection personified James, just cannot find any nits here

[Ofer Levy]

Modern nature photography at its best - your fantastic field work and processing skills created this masterpiece - very well done Jim!

[Kristin Brown]

Jim,
Nice image. Funny how we look back at our photo repertoire and find these gems! Very nice eye contact and beautiful complimentary colors with regard to the bird and the BG. Nice photoshop work too!

[Doug Brown]

Classic pose in perfect light. Superb sharpness. Love the water droplets. Just a great photo.

[Narayan Pai]

great shot , compo , light , BG and exposure .....perfect !! :)

cheers

Narayan

[David Fletcher]

Only paying my respects now James. Utterly superb! Great stuff. U r the man!

[Mike Veltri]

Very nice James, love the raise hood and good work on the cloning.

[Nagesh Mula]

This is a very beautiful picture James. The BKGR here elevates it to different level. Congrats!!