Stepping Stilt

I always enjoy shooting the cool looking Black-headed Stilt which are always in shallow water making nifty reflections.

Specific Feedback Requested

I’ve put a bit of a square crop on it. Kinda freestyle. Does it work?

Technical Details

Is this a composite: No
Nikon D500, Nikon 200-500 lens, Nikon 1.4 TC, 1/500th, f 8.0, 300mm, ISO 2800, hand held, AI Clear, cropped to 3563 x 3633.

Nice capture of the Stilt, Dave. I love how the reflective ripples and the splashes/water drops give great movement to the image. And the square crop works fine for me. Nicely seen and captured.

Very nice job on the exposure and detail in the stilt, Dave. The squarish crop works fine, but my eye does keep wanting just a touch of counter-clockwise rotation.

I like the concept of this image. Nice action with the legs and the little drop of water off the beak. I do think it needs some CCW rotation and I think the image is underexposed. The whites can be whiter without losing detail. I made a couple of adjustments to the rotation and some exposure adjustments. This is what I was thinking. Maybe a touch too far, but suggests there is more there.

Nice touch. Thanks for your input. Sure did enhance it.