Black Guillemot with fish

[AlvanBuckley]

I recently returned to my home in Newfoundland for a week and took some time to do some bird watching along the east coast of the island. One of the highlights of the trip was photographing this guy while it preened and fished in a small body of water next to the ocean.

ISO 200
0 ev
f/5.6
SS 1/800
Nikon D300s + VR 80-400 @ 400mm

C&C would be appreciated!
thanks in advance
-Alvan Buckley

[Troy Lim]

Alvan,

Have you tried to brighten the image a bit more?

[Daniel Cadieux]

Man that must have been a highlight for sure! Terrific low angle, and I love the prey (and especially that the face is towards us). The pano crop works well. Details are good, but the image is underexposed and has a heavy blue cast. I reset the white and black points...this fixed both the exposure and cast in one go. This image needed at least +1 EC in-camera.

Extra tip: ISO 200 is pretty low for most bird photography - especially when movement is involved such as birds swimming and bobbing in the waves...keep it higher and you will be able to stop down (this would have given you a shrp fish too), and add some needed extra EC without compromising SS.

[Arthur Morris]

Alvan, A tip: hire Dan as your photography and Photoshop tutor. This one screamed for a repost but he beat me to the punch. Well done. I do love the fish and the crop.

[Craig Brelsford]

Daniel's re-post saved the day. Now I can see that you took a pretty good shot. Thanks for the low angle. I second what Daniel said about ISO 200, although your speed wasn't a very big problem here.

[AlvanBuckley]

Wow, clearly I should have committed some more time to the processing. I was too arrogant! :p
but now that I realize this I won't do it again (probably/hopefully).
The repost looks many times better.
I've been shooting with ISO 200 whenever I could since I started photography. So it has become a habit and I never knew that it was not suggested. I'll try breaking the habit!

thanks for your comments and suggestions!