Thoughts & Ideas Please

Canon EOS 7D, EF 500mm f/4L IS USM + 1.4x TC @ 700mm, Aperture Priority, f/5.6 (1/2000 sec), ISO 640, -2 EV, JPG from RAW, Cropped About 50% from Full Frame

Subject: Stork-Billed Kingfisher

Location: Kinabatangan River, Sukau, Sabah, Bornean Malaysia

Situation: Some of you might recall from a previous post of this subject the utter frustration I had in trying to capture even a half-way decent image while drifting and bobbing about in mini-whitewater currents along the Tahan River in northern Malaysia last February.

Well, thankfully the tributaries that flow off the Kinabatangan River, where we saw many beautiful Kingfishers, are a whole lot more photographer-friendly and even the main river, where I caught this one, was far easier to work from.

I wouldn't say this is the best of the Stork-Bill shots I came back with, but it's certainly the best I got of any of the many I tried to capture in flight. That said, as with so many of the Kingfisher shots I got, there was a heck of a lot of noise throughout the image, and though my Topaz software does an amazing job, I always try to apply at least some sharpening to the primary subject leaving NR on it well alone, as obviously this runs in the counter direction by smoothing out the detail.

Looking at this image now, although I'm happy enough with the subject's head, bill and eye, I'm thinking perhaps I would have been better off not applying sharpening any of the rest of it, particularly the blue feathers.

I'd very much appreciate any/all thoughts on this and suggestions on how you might go about processing this image better.

Thanks in advance and wishing you all a wonderful weekend ahead :^)