Brown-Headed Gull fishing

[Sadananda Koppalkar]

Shot this some distance away from my city.
This is my first upload in BPN. Hope to learn and contribute to this wonderful community.
EXIF data:
Camera: D90
Lens: Nikon 200-400mm
Aperture: f/4
Shutter speed: 1/4000
ISO: 320
Aperture priority mode
No flash used
Focus mode: AFS
Focal length: 400mm

Cropped from left to get a good compostion. Cloned the distractions on water surface.

[Joel Eade]

Great action capture! Exposure and detail are very good. Pose is cool and the water drops as well as the reflection and prey really add to the strength of the image.

I wonder if it needs a little CCW rotation. Also would consider removing a some from the left and adding to the right side. There is also a small dust bunny near the right upper corner.

[Ravi Hirekatur]

Welcome to the forum Sadananda,
Agree with Joel on dust bunny and composition. There needs to be some room in front of the bird to fly into. You can crop a little on the left side and add some canvas to the front of the picture and copy the gray background into it. Otherwise, great action picture! Nice reflection adds to the composition.

[pat lillich]

beautiful photo Sadananda! love the action and the fish and especially the splash of color from the legs, fish and bill against the cool greys

[Kerry Perkins]

Hello Sadananda, and welcome to BPN! We appreciate your participation and sharing.

Good points made by Joel on the crop and rotation. The best way to check for a level image (especially with such a perfect reflection) is to check a feature that is prominent in both parts of the image. They should line up vertically, as this ensures that the image is level. In this image, a check of the wingtips shows that a slight CCW rotation is in order. There is a slick way to do this in Photoshop. Use the ruler tool (it is hidden in the eyedropper tool panel) and draw a line between the two points. You could also use the eye in this image for your reference. After you have connected the two points with the ruler tool, go to Image | Image Rotation | Arbitrary, and the required rotation angle will be automagically entered in the "Angle" box. Click OK and you are done!

You have beautiful exposure and color rendition, nice sharpness and great action captured. The water looks like a mirror. Nice job! Looking forward to more.

[Sadananda Koppalkar]

Thanks a lot to every one for comments and such a nice critic. Indeed they are so useful while composition. Will certainly work on the above suggestions.