Sanderling at 700mm

[Isaac Grant]

This Sanderling walked up to me and stood there for me to take a picture. It was like he was posing for me. Got a shot and then it just slowly walked away. :wave:. Taken at Breezy Point in Queens, NY while lying in the wet and cold sand.

Canon 7d2 and Canon 500 f4 ii +1.4x iii. ISO 400, F8, SS 1/1600. Evaluative metering. 3 focus point (top left corner and one to right and one below in 15 point expansion) between shoulder and eye. Bird was so close that I am not 100% that I had enough DOF to have whole bird sharp. Breeding colors slowly coming in.

Converted in DPP 4. In PS I cloned out a bit of beach debris, did adjustment for contrast, saturation, highlights and shadows and adjusted levels. Noise reduction on background and sharpened using smart sharpen.

[Lorant Voros]

Well exposed and looks ok with the DOF to me. I find the fore and back ground tricky here. If you level out the image with the floor the shore line bothers me; you leveled the image to the bird...like this both the shore line and the ground angle disturb the image. Maybe it is just not an ideal BG for me, but still I would take the ground as a reference . TFS>

[David Salem]

Nice looking side profile and I like the low shooting angle. A good frame to show how small the DOF is with 700mm at that range. A little more room to the left and a little more sharpening will finish this one off nicely. Well done

[Isaac Grant]

Thanks David. You know I have 2 versions of this photo. One that was sharpened using smart sharpen and another using NIK output sharpener. I was a bit concerned that the one with the NIK sharpener was a bit too sharpened but I see that this could use a bit more. I will go with the other or just up the sharpening a bit using smart sharpen.

Lorant, thanks for the input. One of the reasons I posted this photo was because of the background. It is not conventional. Appreciate the input. It is basically full frame and if I leveled based on the floor then I would have to add canvas to have any room on the left and then would be very tight on the right. Reality was that the bird was on a bit of a hill so I left it that way. But I totally get that that is not "ideal". I actually like the unconventional background on this but see that others may not share that view.

[Marina Scarr]

Sanderling is a tad tight in the frame for me. Slight catch light doesn't look right to my eyes. I really like this bird against the blue and tan, exp is spot on and you have nice feather details.

[Isaac Grant]

Didn't touch the eye at all. Not sure what's up with that but the sun was almost down so perhaps that is at play? I agree it is a bit tight. Which is why if I leveled it it would have been even worse. Thanks for the feedback.