Clark's Grebe

[Terry Olmsted]

A very similar grebe to the Western, but with its eyes set below the black cap. I found them very appealing.
Taken at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in southeastern Oregon.

10/3/2011 Canon 40D 400mm f5.6L 1/1250s f8.0; ISO 400; Av; eval. metering

[Randy Stout]

Terry:

Great looking bird, sharp, well exposed,nice head angle.

Main concern for me is the steep shooting angle, not as flattering as a lower angle. Often you have no options, but something to look for in the future.

Cheers

Randy

[Terry Olmsted]

I agree, Randy. In this case a near-suicide jump into near-freezing water would have been involved :) Next time...

Thanks for your comment!

Terry

[laurie golden]

Terry,

One of my favorite birds, try them at Klamath Lake in May. Lots of places to get down to the water's edge to solve the angle problem.

[Terry Olmsted]

Thanks a bunch for the suggestion, Laurie. We attended this year's Winter Wings festival in Klamath Falls and loved it. Maybe a trip in May would be in order.

Terry

[Daniel Cadieux]

Great bird, I love the red eyes on these. Steep angle mentioned but unavoidable, and there is a blown area on the head that you could try taming during raw conversion (recovery and/or highligh sliders may work). Sharpest area of focus is the tail - was that where your focus pont was?

[Bill Dix]

Beautiful grebe. Better to capture with a steep angle than to take a swim. Sharpness/focus point issue noted.

[Terry Olmsted]

Daniel and Bill

I went back to the RAW file - the focus point was actually on the back just at the base of the neck. I did a bit of spot sharpening
and must have hit the tail twice.

Thanks for the critical look!

Terry