American Avocet

[Robert Amoruso]

MINWR -Titusville, FL 2-3-08

Canon 1D Mark III
1200mm (Canon 600mm + 2x TC)
1/400 sec, f/8, Evaluative, Exp comp: +2, ISO: 800

Cropped into pano. I would have preferred a bit better bent leg position. There is also a test in this image - can you spot what I forgot to do?

Comments welcome.

[Blake Shadle]

Fix the eye? ;) I really like the pano crop on this one, Robert. The water color is very nice.

[john crookes]

slight cw rotation also would be nice

sweet colors and light

[Manos Papadomanolakis]

I really like the crop,colors and the fantastic reflection!

[Leroy Laverman]

I think for this one I would prefer the bird to be a bit darker - more of a silhouette I suppose. It has the look of the shadows being pulled up in post. The color on the water is very nice and the composition fits well.

[Robert Amoruso]

Interesting comments.

Blake got the eye. I put a catch light in the eye but not the reflection. Water color is as it was, no enhancement there.
John got the rotation. It is out 0.22 degrees CW.
Leroy's comment was on target in that I created this w/o flash and could have easily made it a silhouette as well. In this case I selected the bird/reflection and lightened it up and added the catch light to make it look like a flash - but I missed the reflection's catch light. I have the regular version as well which I preferred after viewing both. I also have flashed versions. I will post the other version sometime in the future.

Lots of keen eyes here at BPN. Thanks.

[Glenn Bartley]

The water is beautiful. The eye looks a bit off to me and I think some more fill would have helped.

[David Hemmings]

Wow, this is a beauty Robert, I love the composition and the early morning colors!

[Stephen Stephen]

Robert lovely composition. Nits already mentioned but I'll just add that I find the catchlight a tiny bit too bright.

[Robert Amoruso]

Thanks for additional comments. Helpful in fine-tuning my workflow.

Stephen. I agree on the catch light. It was not so pronounced until I sharpened the image. I generally don't add catch lights but was experimenting here. Thanks for commenting.

[Stu Bowie]

The crop works well with the bent posture of the bird. Amazing colours captured in this, together with a superb reflection. Well done.

[Steve Maxson]

I really like the colors, reflection, composition, and pano crop. As mentioned above, the too-bright catchlight caught my eye (so to speak). Beautiful image.

[Marko Matesic]

Great colors and reflection!
nits mentioned :)

[David Chauvin]

Wow! Gorgeous color and comp. Did I say wow?

[Gayle Clement]

I love the low angle and the wonderful water color.