Theme: Takeoff: Pond Heron.

[Satish Ranadive]

Image was created in March, 2011 at Pune. Raw picture processed with Digital photo professional, Canon, cropped for composition.
Few branches below the wings are cloned.
Thanks for viewing, appreciation. C & C most welcome.

Canon EOS 550D, 100-400mm IS USM.
Tv mode,F.6.,1/2500,ISO:640,Spot metering, White balance: Auto. Hand held.
Exposure bias: +0.3 stop.

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Satish, I am afraid this one does not work for me for multiple reasons. Bird took off at a good angle w.r.t to you....but side light is less than ideal here. BG is quite distracting with the bright band on the left. There is noise in the BG which you can easilly clean up. Details are quite soft...is it a big crop?

[Petros Petrou]

Nice take-off pose and good job with cloning. The background is a bit noisy and the subject seems lacking detail.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Good timing, and the whites are well exposed. Nice pose and the near wing looks good, but I agree with KD...light angle, background, and heavy noise are problematic here.