Roseate Spoonbill

Gallery: AvianPosted May 18, 201681 views8 comments

Roseate Spoonbill

Took this in April of last year at my my favorite spot, the Live Oak Nursery ponds--a.k.a. Rip's Rookery. I like this pose and the nice head turn. In their mating plumage, these birds have an amazing range of colors with a green head, orange face, red eye, gray bill, black neck stripe, pale blue neck, orange shoulder patches. crimson and pink wings, white back, and an orange tail.

D7200, tripod, cable release.
1/1600, f/7.1
ISO 500
T150-600mm @ 460mm
Cropped to 15% of full frame.
LR-6, levels and sharpening.

Comments welcomed.

Comments

8 comments

Comment posted by Jefferson Silva on May 18, 2016 at 9:26 PM

I liked the bird pose on this one. If it was mine, I would probably try to clone out that branch on the right.
Nice image!

Registered on December 18, 2012, 162 Posts, 975 Comments

Comment posted by Dennis Plank on May 19, 2016 at 12:04 PM

A beautiful job on the Spoonbill, Raoul, with just the right dof. That eye really pops at this angle. I would agree with cloning the twigs on the lower right and might even be tempted to remove or temper the light colored oof twigs that come down around the head as they are rather distraction to my eye.

devil

Registered on January 28, 2008, 1767 Posts, 23192 Comments

Comment posted by S Govindarajan on May 19, 2016 at 6:44 PM

You have covered the strengths of this image very well, Raoul. Nice look at this colorful species.

Registered on April 19, 2008, 115 Posts, 1921 Comments

Comment posted by Steve Thompson on May 19, 2016 at 8:18 PM

The colors are truly amazing. Well captured with very nice detail in the spoonbill Raoul. The 4x5 crop works great for this image. Nice work!

Registered on August 7, 2014, 125 Posts, 2319 Comments

Comment posted by Ken Archer on May 20, 2016 at 6:15 AM

A wonderful capture of this beauty on what seems like an unusual perch. Great pose, great color and a pleasing composition.

Sweet One Raoul laugh

Registered on October 28, 2004, 222 Posts, 6683 Comments

Comment posted by Bill Leggett on May 20, 2016 at 4:20 PM

Nice image and good pose, Raoul. Considering your location at the ponds, I don't mind the branches - hard to get a clean shot there. I'd consider cloning or cropping that bit of branch at the bottom. I'm confused about the crop, however. You say "15% of full frame", don't you mean 15% off full frame ?

Registered on July 21, 2004, 706 Posts, 3233 Comments

Comment posted by David Schoen on May 20, 2016 at 8:22 PM

Looking at the large detailed image I feel the colors and textures between the bird in the background complement each other quite well. I realize this is a very large crop. It does show but I don't think it is detrimental. It does create a bit of softness which I think actually does quite well with the total image. I really like it. We always have a place for exquisite sharpness and detail but I think sometimes softer image can be just as nice.

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

Comment posted by Raoul Breaux Jr on May 20, 2016 at 8:48 PM

Thanks to all for the nice comments and suggestions! I thought about cloning-out the sticks to the right, but with LR6 as my sole editing tool right now, it gets a little tedious, so I left them.

Bill, I actually do mean 15% of the frame. Before resizing, the original 24MP file was cropped down to 3.56MP! Not by choice, but most of these birds are pretty far away. While I can zoom to 600mm, I hesitate to go beyond 500mm as the lens gets soft. It takes a large effective focal length to fill the frame with these nesting wading bird. Once I get my boat back on the water, this will improve.

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