Slavonian Grebe in snow

[Jeroen Stel]

Have started working on a new project being a pair of Slavonian Grebes. They have been on my "to do" list for a long time so glad i was able to finally find a pair of these scarse little beauties...

As it was snowing yesterday i will not start out with an image of both of them close-up but would like to share this one Slavonian Grebe in snowfall first as i really liked the atmosphere.

greetings,

Jeroen Stel

Canon Eos 1D Mark IV
Shutter speed: 1/200 sec
Aperture: F 5.6
Exposure mode: AV
Exposure compensation: + 1/3
Flash:no
Flash exposure compensation: -
Metering mode: Evaluative
Drive mode: AI Servo
ISO: 400
Lens: Canon 600mm F4
Focal length:780 mm
AF mode: Auto Focus
On tripod from water
Levels/Curves/USM/Contrast/Saturation/Noise Ninja/Home stewed Sharpening-mix/ Adobe Photoshop CS5

[thijs broekkamp]

Nice one Jeroen, the snow adds a lot of atmosphere.

[Richard Pittam]

Nice one Jeroen.
Could the bird itself and its immediate area stand a bit more sharpening?

[Gerald Kelberg]

Nice find and a beautiful image. I really love the atmosphere you have created here with the falling snow - in and out of focus. And the bright red eye in the overall blue-toned image is really striking.

You might want to consider cropping a little off the top - to about halfway through the darker/land area. But I also like it a lot as it is.

[Matthew Studebaker]

wow - what an artistic image. The snow really adds to the mood. I usually like horz compositions for waterbirds but understand why you went vertical here. This would make a lovely cover image to a book or mag.

[arash_hazeghi]

lovely, I like the mood and composition, this will look much better at larger size

[David Pugsley]

I absolutely love the mood set by this image. I feel as if I'm there. The splash of color from the eye makes it for me...would love to see a larger version.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Great mood, it is not often we associate grebes with snow. The red eye stands out beautifully among the "cold" colours of the image, very neat! I'm glad you went for a vertical, but for me placing the grebe lower (by raising the camera a bit more) would have been even better IMO (I like small in the frame birds placed into corners...)

[James Salywoda]

Beautiful shot Jeroen I love the composition.

[Greg Basco]

Jeroen, really nice mood and comp. This will make a great large print. I think this is the kind of image that forum presentation doesn't really do justice to.

I do think that for the presentation here, a bit more sharpening on the bird, as Richard mentioned, would be good.

Cheers,
Greg

[Mark Young]

I love the composition of this image. It has a very Christmas'ish feel to it.