Pushed it to far?

Image Critiques Avian Critiques
1

It was a thin to medium full coverage overcast day. Great day for eliminating those ugly nasty shadows.

Unfortunately my favorite geese and duck pond was not providing much in the way of flying birds. There were a couple of gulls flying around and they make for good tracking practice if nothing else.

I offer this photo for critique. This was originally a native NEF Nikon RAW file. the only thing I did was to recover the whites and crop the image ( there is additional grey sky in the full frame) and finally saved it to jpeg with sRGB and 1500pixels on maximum side. No sharpening or noise reduction was performed.

Nikon D500, Nikkor 70-200 f2.8
Shot at 200mm, 1/2500 f5.6 at ISO 1000

Please comment on;

  • space left to the bottom and right side of the image (the direction the bird is looking).
  • Focus
  • ISO and subsequent Noise

As always, Thanks for your time in providing your valuable critiques.

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_5001238b1159×1500 415 KB

2

I think the crop is perfect. The head is soft when enlarged but not noticeable on even my large monitor when viewing the full photo. I don’t see a problem with noise.

I think you did a great job with the whites, providing some beautiful glow in spots and contrast between shades. I also like the wing positions/pose.

3

Perfect timing, Greg. I just love his pose. Everything looks fine to me.

4

Nice inflight position with good detail. You should have very little noise with a D500 at iso 1000. DOF is fine. Good for a large crop but you could crop tighter and decrease the blue sky space.

5

I think the crop/composition works well. I like the pose and the spread of the wing feathers on the right hand side. Don’t see much, if any, noise. Nice.

6

Greg: I think the crop is fine as is and the detail in the whites of the feathers is excellent. I really like the pose that you’ve captured. All in all, it’s nicely done. Richard

7

Thanks Richard. I little bit of luck always helps.

8

Focus and noise look absolutely fine to me, Greg. With the upward energy of the bird, I think it might want to be lower in the frame, but I like the side-to-side positioning. You caught a very dynamic pose. Well worth the effort to work on this one until you get it right where you want it.

9

Thanks Dennis, I dropped it to just below center left. Definitely gives it a different look.