Charging Coot!

[Michael_Loizou]

Taken at Ryton Pool, Warwickshire, UK

Camera: 7D
Lens : Canon 300mm f4 (non-is)
Exposure 1/800
Focal Length 420 mm
ISO Speed 160

[Katie Rupp]

Nice head-on action and I like the way the blurred wings capture the feeling of movement; I'm not seeing much detail in the whites on the beak/forehead, but then I'm more used to seeing American Coot whose beaks are more ivory colored beak and the forehead shield is red.

[Arthur Morris]

EXP good and spray over the top :) A Linear Burn on the bill would help. As would selectively sharpening the head and face.

How large a crop?

[Michael_Loizou]

Thank you for the tips!

It is not a large crop, the cropped image pixel dimensions are 2975x2445

[Arthur Morris]

YAW. I never understand the #s. Can you post a JPEG that represents the ORIG? IAC, sharpening the head and face would help this one a lot.

[Michael_Loizou]

My apologies, I replaced the photo on flickr after I edited it and managed to break the link on the initial post (which I cannot edit ...) :(

I only cropped around 2 to 3% of the original photo from the top, that's it. So the crop is minimal.

Here is the link to the full sized shot after the editing:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/87805817@N00/5526889128/
or
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5091/...dd4cbeef_o.jpg

Here is the smaller version of the edited photo for the initial post:

[Arthur Morris]

Michael, The image in Pane #6 cannot be a 2-3% crop off the top only as it is nowhere near a 3X2 proportion....

[Michael_Loizou]

Sorry Arthur, I think I should sleep more!, when I said that I was looking at another version of the edited image and not the original ...

This is how the original looks like. Do you have a suggestion on a better crop?

[Arthur Morris]

Image does not show :)

[Michael_Loizou]

Strange, I can see it ok on both my pc and my iPhone, even when not logged in.
The last is a photobucket image (the previous ones are on Flickr). Maybe photobucket is blocked at your current location?

EDIT:
I uploaded a copy on Flickr, hope you can see this ok:

[Daniel Cadieux]

Upon looking at the image in pane #8 and #10, I would crop wider than what is at pane #6 to take advantage of the way cool spraying action. Something similar to this:

[Arthur Morris]

Strange but nope :)

[Michael_Loizou]

Very strange, it looks like Daniel can see it ok.
Maybe a temporary glitch on your internet connection?

I am off to bed as it is midnight here but looking forward to reading more tomorrow.

I really appreciate the comments from everyone!

[Arthur Morris]

I see and like Dan's rule of thirds crop.

[Michael_Loizou]

Great! Thank you both for the input. I will re-edit and print a version with the suggested crop.