An American Avocet in Spring

There is a small pond just behind the Taco Bell in Belen, New Mexico, locally known as the Belen marsh. I was there on the morning of 17 April with good light and a calm surface.



Canon 5D IV, 600mm f/4 II, 1.4X TC III for 840mm.
1/2000, f/5.6, ISO 200.
This is about 30% of the original image, as the 30 megapixels of the 5D IV and low ISO gave me some latitude. NR on the background with Dfine 2 and sharpening the bird with unsharp mask. I removed 373 little mud mounds from the surface of the shallow water.

Have I gone to far? Eager for your responses. Thanks.

I like it Jim. Without seeing the original its difficult to say if you've gone too far, but if you hadn't mentioned the removal, I doubt I'd have noticed.

The frame has held up well to the crop, details on the bird look good. Do you have any others maybe with the eye more open, its the only thing that bugs me a little - possibly not given how the light conditions must have been.

nice work

Mike

Hi Jim,

Its a good Image. I like the reflection.

When we see reflection related Images I tend to remove the mud and other distractions. I think thats ok.

I could see some spots related to sensor dust which could be corrected as well.

Thanks for sharing

From Mike: "Do you have any others maybe with the eye more open, its the only thing that bugs me a little - possibly not given how the light conditions must have been."
There is one photograph with an eye wider open, but the background isn't cooperative. BTW I found your latest shark image. You're an artist.

From Krishna: "I could see some spots related to sensor dust which could be corrected as well."
A very valuable comment. I found the "Visualize Spots" slider and have removed those I could find.

Thank you both.

Jim, I like the image, as far as removing the mud mounds that's up to you and what you are trying to achieve.
As far as the eye goes it really doesn't bother me, sometimes you have to take what nature presents.
I noticed there are some sensor or lens dust particles still visible in the re-post.


-Tim

I'm learning a lot, even at the cost of some embarrassment. Thanks for bearing with me.

I opened the file in PS, enlarged it a lot, and did multiple visual sweeps of the image. I found a number of dust spots. Then I took the image back to LR and used the Visualize Spots slider again, taking it to about 2/3 of the way to the right, and finding more spots. Then I pushed the slider all the way to the right and got the shot below. I understand that this is elementary, but I don't want to make a similar mistake again. So. Here is the second retake.

Hi Jim always nice seeing your photos. I think every thing has been covered. Biggest thing with me I would like to see more open eye.

Kevin, the bird was winking at me. I agree. It's bad form.