This is a Western Grebe with a fish. This was taken from the shore. It was taken on a man-made reservoir in San Diego County last March. The fish is an offering for the female. These images were taken during mating season which is quite an exciting time. We saw both Clark’s grebes and Western grebes exhibiting their typical rushing behavior. Just fascinating! I reprocessed the image from the original raw file today. This is about 50% of full frame. Conditions were quite cloudy and I believe we got rained on that afternoon.
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Technical Details
Is this a composite: No
ISO 1000, 400+1.4 X, F5 .6, 1250th, handheld, Sony Alpha one
Super – wonderful pose and great detail in darks and lights! I love the water on his back, and the fish!
I wonder if it’s possible to tone down the bright areas of the water? If selecting it around the bird doesn’t work well, it might be done as a gradient from the LL.
I made an effort to try some of your suggestions but I just don’t have the skills necessary to make it look accurate. Please be my guest and see what you can do. I just change the crop a little and I think it’s a little less distracting.
David, the crop works quite well too. No need for adjusting further in my opinion. I love it when we can get birds doing what they do…eat (and fly, and float, etc…)
