blue footed bobby portrait

[Wendy Kates]

From my trip to the Galapagos last month: I captured this image of a blue footed booby from our dingy which came right up to the rocks on which the booby was perching. Since I was shooting from the boat, it was handheld. I cropped it slightly, and sharpened it, and since the bokeh was uneven, I blurred the background. I couldn't decide whether I should remove the feathers on the beak, so I left them as is.
Canon Rebel Xsi; 70-200mm /f4 lens, at 190 mm; f4; 1/160; ISO 200.
Comments and critiques welcome.
(BTW, I tried posting this earlier but for some reason it didn't post. So if for some reason it was delayed, and I end up with two identical posts, I apologize in advance!)

Wendy

[Cathy McEntee]

Hi Wendy - what a neat looking bird--the eyes are stunning, and I love the composition and background. Parts of the image are out of focus--if you could have stopped down to f8 (with increased ISO), the whole head should have been in focus. I think I would try removing the feathers. Nice job--thanks for sharing.

[Kerry Perkins]

Hello Wendy, you made a really nice capture of the booby and the eyes are definitely awesome. What hurts this image the most is the motion blur, as 1/160 is a stretch for any hand-held situation with this lens - shooting from a boat makes the challenge even greater. I am not seeing any part of the image that is in critical focus and I think the culprit is camera shake. I would crop about half of the space from the right, add some sharpening, and boost the saturation just a bit. Nice image overall, agree about more depth of field. Keep them coming!

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Wendy,

Every time I see this bird it makes me smile - nice picture. I like the feather, a point of focus for the eyes and makes this image a bit different. Cathy nailed it with the ISO catch, at 800 you could have doubled the aperture to f8 and gained more DoF. Would it have been enough to get the entire bill in the critically sharp plane - maybe not but that is one option to make the image stronger IMO. I do like the portrait look and the centered subject works for me. Very different and unique, great subject with an interesting perspective - well done.

[Wendy Kates]

Thanks, all, for your helpful comments. I definitely see now that I should have shot it at f8, my Canon Rebel produces pretty noisy images at an ISO of 800. (I really should buy a new camera!) I'll try sharpening again as you suggest, Kerry, although some of the detail of the feathers seem to be lost forever.