Improving captor

[hughredcanary]

Trying to improve on my captor
Using Nikon D200, Expos Manual, f5.6, ISO 400, at 400mm, Lens 80-400mm, Pattern Metering.
In Photoshop CS3 adjustment levels RGB showing Highlights 255, Midtones of 1.00, Shadows of 0,I reduced Midtones to 188, increased Shadow input to 7, sharpened to 8%
I couldn’t improve on the eye contact what do you think
Hugh

[Canis Vulpes]

Hugh,

Its quite a nice action shot but Wildlife is outside my field of expertise. I cannot understand why you have opted for manual exposure. I would have thought that auto exposure using matrix metering would have been better and if not exposure compensation could increase or decrease exposure to taste. I prefer to obtain exposure in camera rather than using levels in Photoshop to adjustments, of course minor adjustments are mostly necessary.

I am not sure if you could bring out the eye as its in shadow.