East African Crowned Crane- resident of the Denver Zoo. Got loads of other photos that day too, but decided this was the best for this challenge.
Zero Cropping. I decided to go with my original close cropped version, although I had others that weren't zoomed nearly as much. Simple editing- Exposure Compensation, WB, Brightness, Levels/Curves, Noise Reduction, USM, Couple Capture NX control points to boost Brightness/Contrast on beak, Save for Web, USM.
Statistics
Place: 160 out of 430 Avg (all users): 5.8421 Avg (commenters): 5.8571 Avg (participants): 5.8318 Avg (non-participants): 5.8667 Views since voting: 1299 Views during voting: 233 Votes: 152 Comments: 10 Favorites: 1 (view)
I LOVE these birds. The Fresno zoo has them in an ordinary aviary walk-through cage covered with ivy, but the way the light is in the afternoon, it pours in through a gap near the roof and lights up their feathery heads and there's this dark background and augh. Gorgeous. It's like they did it just for photographers.
This is a wonderful image and I can't believe it didn't score even better than it did.
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