Richness of Early Morning Light: Laughing Dove

[Ranbir Mahapatra]

Canon EOS 400D, Sigma 120-400mm at 400mm, f5.6, 1/125, ISO100.
Time: Early Morning en route to SriHarikota from Pulicat Lake

Spotted this dove in the midst of this shrub. The early morning light when coupled with sparse cloud cover gave an extremely rich texture to this image.

Composition is much to be desired though. Your comments are welcome.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Beautiful light. That makes all the difference. The image is sharp despite being clicked at 400mm at 1/125th of second. Were you handholding or using the monopod?

A composition with the dove at the right would have been better. A higher aperture, say f8 would have been better as well, but that would have brought down the shutter speed. So that was not an option obviously.

[Ranbir Mahapatra]

Thanks for the input. This image was created using the window glass of the car as lens support.

True, perhaps the bifurcating branches could have been better used to lead the eye to the subject. The dove would certainly have been more aesthetically placed on right.