Spoonie Having a Bath

[Melissa Groo]

Canon 7D
500mm
Gitzo 3530LS/Wimberley
Standing in water

1/1600 sec
f/8
ISO 400

From my wonderful day with Mr. James Shadle out at the Alafia Banks, Tampa, FL, last Feb. Just processed this one. A pretty good size crop, at least 50%. Some NR of BG, sharpening, recovery of whites.

A slight head turn towards us might have been better, I don't know. But I liked the pose and the water splashes/drops. I can't ever get over what odd and utterly magnificent creatures these are.

Thanks so much for looking. Appreciate all comments and critiques!

[Joe Senzatimore]

Love the action and the drops put it over the top. Nice job on post.

[Ronald Zigler]

Nice picture, great color. The water drops adds a dynamic touch to the image.

[Dan Busby]

The 7D pulled out lots a great detail for you Melissa, even with the large crop. A head turn might have given a better angle but that beak is so long you might have lost the DoF. It's probably just me but I tried a 0.1 reduction on the exposure and felt it was a bit easier on my eyes (although still retaining the bright feel).

[Doug Brown]

Exposure and sharpness are perfect. Those colors are fantastic and so is the splash. More eye contact would have brought the overall impact up a notch.

[Dan Behm]

So much to like about this one, an all around great image Melissa... Love it, the water splashes really adds to the dynamics of this one!!! Great work!!!

Dan

[Sachin Saraf]

Melissa this is wonderful capture...Nice low angle, exposure and the splash...colors came out really beautiful...

[Marina Scarr]

Stunning image, Melissa, of a stunning bird! Considering the crop, I think you have plenty of details here. Since this is a story of a spoonie taking a bath, I really dont' feel it's necessary for more HA toward you. I would be very happy to have this one!

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Melissa, good low angle here, and I really like the colours of the spoonie. Good action from the bathing behaviour, and the flying droplets always add to these type of images. Overall, nice and sharp too.

[gail bisson]

Very nice Melissa. Good colors and action. A bit more of a head turn would have been nice but that is a minor nit,
Gail

[Mital Patel]

Melissa,

Very beautiful image. everythings been said and i just love the light and sharpness.
The moment is so amazing here you grabbed it beautifully.

I might give another try apart from your best presentation to add bit space on right and give a pinch of NR over bg including water spalsh.

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

Pretty good IQ for the large crop. Nice image love the action and detail.

[Melissa Groo]

THanks to all for your feedback, very helpful and appreciated!

[Arthur Morris]

Ditto all the positives noted above. Even though the bird's head is pretty much parallel to the imaging sensor the bird's body is angled towards us..... The best head angle in those cases is to have the head on straight; otherwise, as here, the head is actually turned away from both the viewer and the centerline of the bird's body. And that goes regardless of what the bird is doing. Even if you make something for OOTB I wanna see a good head angle....

[Josh Clark]

Great water splashing action here Melissa. This guy was going to town and you did a great job capturing all the water splashing action that was going on. Great behavior shot.