Horned Grebe

[Kenn Christensen]

This morning I spotted a horned grebe on a nearby lake.. and I was lucky enough to have him come in close enough for a decent shot. rotated to make the grebe look level.. though Ill admit.. I think maybe its the ripples.. Im having a heck of a time getting it to look right... still looks a tad whack to me

1d Mk III
500 F4 w 1.4 TC
iso 320
1/200 sec
f9

[Arthur Morris]

Looks lovely to me, though a bit noisy in the upper BKGR--surprising for the MIII unless the ORIG was under-EXP...Love the raised crest and the detail in the blacks. Would like a bit more room above w/o that white strip. Actually could use more room above and below. Lastly, please confirm that you worked on the eye; it looks great, but that is very hard to acheive right out of the camera with this species...

[Harold Davis]

a wonderful image of a beautiful bird!! i agree with adding a little room up and down.

[Kenn Christensen]

I can give it more room above and below.. and yes.. it was about 2/3 stop under exposed... and actually.. the eye? I didnt work on it specifically, but I did boost saturation a bit to bring it up to what I thought I saw in the field.. this bird came in VERY close.. inside my minimum focus range.. anyway I often do work special on eyes but this one was so intense I figured it would look like a total alien if I did anything more.. so I didnt process it any different then the rest of the bird... but I did take about 100 shots of this guy.. and I did take my best shot as they say... sometimes the eye was much less visible.... and thanks for your observations!
I acutally just got back from the lake with about 100 more shots.. slightly better exposed.. so maybe i have something better.. but of course the light was different.. and there was a bit more chop on the water...
ok... I just looked at the next group that are properly exposed.. I have a couple of very nice ones... in ALL of them the eye is quite visible... oh.. did I say 100 shots? more like 200.... guess I must subscribe to the shoot like crazy and hope for the best theory... hopefully I will get over it.... thats probably 300 shots of just this one bird alone today.... and lots of them were just plain bad... oof, not exposed correctly... just about every mistake I could think of to make... if you have any more suggestions on things to do wrong.. I will try and implement them as well... lol its amazing I get a good one from time to time!... but it really has helped being here to see what good shots actually look like!.... or perhaps I should I say amazing shots...

[Rich Ikerd]

Beautiful grebe Kenn. I'm in the need a little more room at the top crowd. The image is just to top heavy. I would rather see more at the top and eliminate some of the reflection.

[Jim Poor]

Another vote for a little more room at the top. If you still have questions about the rotation, you can draw a line from the tip of the real bill to the tip of the reflected bill with the ruler tool.

[Gayle Clement]

This is a bird I'd love to get. Terrific, sharp image. I agree with the suggestions, especially the more room at the top.

[John Cooper]

This is a lovely image Kenn - good lighting and details. The composition could be improved IMO by a bit more space at top.
Really beautiful Grebe!!

[Phil Bayley]

Here is an adjustment incorporating most of the suggestions.

[Raymond Packard]

Beautiful creature, nice capture.
Ray

[Kenn Christensen]

Arthur Morris had inquired about the eyes of this bird and I think the best way to answer this is with a display of the shot unaltered. I just converted it to JPG and resized it. As you can see the exposure was very poor.

[Arthur Morris]

Hi Kenn, Thanks for the repost.

#1: The EXP is not "very poor." I opened the jpeg in PS and saw that there was very little room on either the shadow or the highlight ends, thus, this was a good exposure.

#2: From seeing only the j-peg I could not tell anything about the eyes, thus my original question is unanswered. Here it is, re-phrased: Did you make any selective adjustments to the eye or the pupil? (If not, then this is the sharpest eye I have ever seen in an image of this species.

#3: You need to learn to use the ruler tool to level images like this. The basics are in ABP II and I think that there is a more detailed thread on making the proper rotations in ER.

[Kenn Christensen]

Hi Arthur...
wow.. thanks for the quick response....
On the eye.... I have done absolutly nothing on the 2nd image.. on the first Image Im pretty sure I just made global adjustments. The eye was highly visible in with my naked eye. I was playing a horned grebe call and this bird came straight in. He was in so close that at times I couldnt focus on him. I tried to get as low a perspective as possible.. but the bank was a very sharp cut edge so about 2.5 feet was it.....
One the exposure... well. that was shot with no adjustment.. the camera picked. I thought maybe a +1 would have been better? I did some work with this same species a few times subsequent to this.. but the light was different each time and I never really got it perfect... pretty close though..... certain birds responded well to calls.... others totally ignored it..... the birds hang around here waiting for the ice to melt off the other lakes a bit. This particular lakes always is the first to open up around here and the birds either know that.. or they just see it......

[Arthur Morris]

Hi Kenn, YAW. You made on sharp image. No need to PM me as I follow the threads closely. Anyway, I hate PMs, if I miss anyone's comments please feel free to e-mail me. Thanks.

[Kenn Christensen]

just for general interest.. here are a couple of shots from the same lake that a friend of mine made using the original Dslr Rebel and a 400 F5.6 (canon) lens shot handheld.... not sure the rest of the stats.. he took these withing a few feet of where I took mine... (I tipped him off on location)
this bird seems to have quite the mane...

[Kenn Christensen]

this bird was close and looking right at him... not sure how he managed it.....