Courting Blue-Footed Booby

I have just returned from an amazing 3 weeks in Ecuador, the Galapagos Islands, and the amazon jungle. Here is one of the first images i've photoshopped - cropped only.
D1X with 80-400VR, hAND-HELD.

Lighting was just too dim to hand-hold this one. Sharpness is far from optimal. What a strange pose you captured here - befitting of a bird with such a name!

A strangly beautiful bird, Sandy. I agree with Marc, the image does appear a bit soft.

Yes, the image is a bit soft but it sounds like you did no post-processing for sharpening? From what you said, all you did was crop and post so perhaps there's room for improvement in the sharpness arena.

OTOH, it would take a lot of work, perhaps too much for what you'd get back, to make the booby's wings show out more against the dark background.

And the others are so right - the posture and wing positions of this bird are absolutely strange!

Thanks, I'll try again with better sh rpening. i always seem to do too little with this monitor.
This is the typicall mating dance of these great birds - one prancing around and whistling, and the other alternating ignoring it (lol! the female!) and prancing and calling in return. Sandy

Ok, let's see how thisnappearsvhere. On my monitor, it apperas way over-sharpened. What is the solution to this? I have a new Sony monitor that is supposed to be excellent for photo imaging. Thanks for all the input - Sandy

What was your shutter speed and focal lenth when capturing this? You would need at least 1/500+ to ensure sharpness at 400mm. The image is still far from as sharp as it could be.

What was your shutter speed and focal lenth when capturing this? You would need at least 1/500+ to ensure sharpness at 400mm. It dosen't look like that would be possible in these shady surroundings. The image is still far from as sharp as it could be.