Snowy Reflection

[Kerry Perkins]

This is somewhat of a "behavior" shot, but not necessarily what you might be thinking... This snowy, captured at the Salton Sea, was watching a coot swimming around under the water - hoping he would churn up some fish for him!

Captured just as the sun was setting in late November. I am aware of the slight blue cast in portions of the plumage, but trying to remove it made for an unnatural look IMO... I am most interested in hearing what you think about the composition, as this is very close to full frame.

50D, EF400mm f/5.6L
Manual mode, f/5.6@1/1250 ISO 400 WB 5100K
AI Servo autofocus, hand-held no flash

Thank you for your comments!

[OvidiuCavasdan]

Composition looks fine to me! I like the pose and water color.

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Kerry Does show being close to full frame, quality is there !!!

Will wait for some comments before jumping in but do have a couple of points ... hope someone comes up with them !!! .... also jump in on other images giving your two cents worth !!! :)

[William Malacarne]

Kerry

I like this a lot. Good exposure with the whites under control. To me it could use ~2 deg CW rotation. One should be able to draw a 90 deg vertical line between the end of the two beaks.

Bill

[Kerry Perkins]

Thanks for the comments guys. Bill, you are right about the rotation! Thanks for catching what I missed.

Al, I've been doing a lot of commenting over in OOTB which is why I haven't been so active in this forum. :)

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Kerry Thanks, don't do much over there so had no idea, it is a fun place :)

Btw I find the blue not natural? Will take to PS to play around with it see what I come up with !! ... also might lighten the reflection up a little bit !!!

.... if you encounter that same situation on a sunny day with strong contrasty sun ... forget the bird and go for the reflection !!! :)

[Lance Peters]

Hi Kerry - agree with AL - thats some kind of blue in the water - couple of minor tweaks here and looking good.
Like the composition.
Good show :)

[Colin Knight]

Wishing I could see the feet....all other techs well covered. I always like reflection shots, this is one of my favorites!

Thanks for sharing!

[Kerry Perkins]

Thanks for all the good suggestions. I went back to the drawing board on this one. ;)

Don't know what I was thinking with the color of the water! I guess I looked at it so long that I convinced myself that it was ok... I rotated the image a tad clockwise - thanks Bill. Attempted to get the color balance back on planet earth. The sky was very blue at the time of capture. Hope this looks better! :) I do agree about the feet.