Anhinga, Male

Gallery: AvianPosted April 4, 201696 views6 comments

This is one of the birds I was really looking forward to seeing in Florida and they were plentiful. This one gave us some nice poses with a fairly decent bg. I'll post some from a rookery later that have some pretty fancy display moves.

7D2, Sigma 150-600 C @ 361 mm, hand held from boat, f/6.3, 1/1250, iso 500, manual exposure. Processed in LR5 & CS6. Cropped to 15.4 MP before resizing. I believe we encountered this individual along the main St John's River rather than a tributary. Taken at 12:08 PM on March 27th. I believe we had pretty cloudy skies that day so the light was fairly soft.

Please open the larger image-it really makes a difference.

Comments and criticisms are very much appreciated.

Thanks,

Comments

6 comments

Comment posted by Kurt Bowman on April 4, 2016 at 11:10 PM

Nice comp on this one Dennis. Pretty hard to manage the exposure on B&W birds with the overcast skies. I think you did it well, but besides your whites, the image does still seem a tiny bit underexposed. If mine, I might make a small exposure adjustment, but would do it only by adjusting the blacks and shadow areas just a very tiny bit. Still nice work!

Registered on June 19, 2008, 1005 Posts, 8028 Comments

Comment posted by Jerry Austin on April 5, 2016 at 7:44 AM

I agree with Kurt, Perhaps a little exposure tweak. I am still waiting for my first good image of this species. Good job.

Registered on January 6, 2012, 651 Posts, 3448 Comments

Comment posted by David Schoen on April 5, 2016 at 12:17 PM

The large detailed image works much better here. If my monitor is brighter it pays off on this image. Appears very sharp and the larger image. One thing that probably helps me and looking at darker images is that my computer cave is rather dark and is illuminated primarily by a single 25 W compact fluorescent behind and above the monitor.With the black-and-white bird, there isn't much color except in the eye and the beak and those both look real nice in this image.

Registered on November 6, 2006, 1213 Posts, 4587 Comments

Comment posted by Jim DeWitt on April 5, 2016 at 4:32 PM

Excellent, Dennis. Good detail throughout, very nice management of depth of field and good perch. I like the way the monochromatic bird draws the eye to the blue in the eye and bill. It might be worth a try to tweak the shadows down with the Shadow/Highlights tool, just a tiny bit, to try for more detail in the blacks in the butt. A minor nit on fine shot.

Registered on August 28, 2006, 1240 Posts, 8506 Comments

Comment posted by Wayne Jones on April 5, 2016 at 9:23 PM

I think this is excellent, especially for a black and white bird. You managed the depth of field very well to get detail in the whole bird and still blur the background well. Looks just a little dark on my monitor, but quite natural for a cloudy day.

Registered on April 18, 2007, 953 Posts, 6435 Comments

Comment posted by Raoul Breaux Jr on May 10, 2016 at 2:05 PM

Looking back through the gallery and saw this. Great shot Dennis! I love this kind of presentation--the subject against a dark background. I too think the blacks could come up a little, but even so, it is nice.

Registered on April 27, 2016, 20 Posts, 142 Comments