Purple Gallinule

[WIlliam Maroldo]

SonyA700~Sony70-400G@400mm~ISO1000~F6.3~1/400 sec~manual exposure~HH~5-9-2009~ Brazos Bend State Park, Texas~CS4
Not real sure about this one. Cloudy, near sunset. comments and critique welcomed. regards~Bill

[PeterCollins]

Hi Will,

Can see what you have tried to do, for my eye the lack of a bg just bleeds over to the subject, for example the tip of the beak is quite hard to pick out

Done very well to get detail on the subject, for my taste is just looks too isolated :)

[Ricardo Rodriguez]

Hi Bill, I know how hard it is (at least for me, in Florida) to get a clean image of this beautiful bird. I see Peter's point, but I appreciate the high key bg in your image. I also like the unusual pose, overall comp, and details on the feathers. I would brighten the eye and surrounding area a bit. Overall, a very nice image, IMO.

[Thanaboon Jearkjirm]

Like what you are trying to do here, the high key which help bring out the shape of the usual pose. Nice details on the bird too. However when I first look at the image my attention when straight to the body, then I have search for the eye.

[Dave Mills]

Hi Bill, I like the HK look to the image also with its sharpness and color. The slight loss of definition in the beak tip due to the wt backround is not major but with a darker bkrnd would obviously pop out. Might give more room to the rt since the bird is looking in that direction. Overall, well handled!

[WIlliam Maroldo]

Thanks guys! Excellent point about moving to the left Mr Mills. Ricardo, you are absolutely correct about difficulty getting a clean background with gallinules, and I don't think Florida is much different than Texas in that respect! Peter, the merge(thats what it is called) in the beak area could be fixed by saturating the yellows in the beak a bit more. Good point.
Thanaboon: the dark eye with the dark blue head plummage is a problem with all purple gallinule images, I don't know if there is much to do about it here but brighten the eye. Overall brightness would help, but not an option here; exposure was pretty much as shown here. Although I prefer the expose to the right plan, I didn't want to drop the SS, which would cause blurring problems, and a dark subject is definitely a serious noise problem for higher ISOs, and clipping the light parts(head shield, white tail, beak) a problem in itself. Thanks! regards~Bill

[Dan Brown]

Great pose William! That makes up for any other minor nits IMO! Good sharpness also.

[Bob Miller]

Hi Bill....I like this image alot. It looks kind of artistic in its unique pose and HK. Working with the beak and the eye is all thats needed IMHO.