Pacific Golden Plover

[Colin Driscoll]

Non-breeding plumage. Showing that I do take shots in subdued light as well as blinding midday sunlight :S3:
1DXII 70-200mm f/2.8L II & 2xIII 400mm 1/640 f10 iso800 -0.7 DPP4 & PSCC

[Jonathan Ashton]

Colin not sure why you underexposed, I wouldn't have I don't think, maybe the lightest areas would have just about blown but I am sure they would have been recoverable, by doing this I think the darks would have been better exposed and there would have been even less noise.
Nice capture I would suggest lifting the darker areas . Also in shots like these you may find it beneficial to knock the contrast down a little if you are using Canon standard in DPP.

[Colin Driscoll]

Thanks for pulling me up on this one Jonathan. Went back to the raw and here's what I should have posted :e3 Hopefully an improvement.

[Eric Dienesch]

Hello,

yes the second version is much better in my eyes !

[Jonathan Ashton]

Colin yes that's better but I think there is still a little way to go on the darkest elements - also the eye.

[Isaac Grant]

Agree with what was said above. Bird is underexposed. The repost is better but still seems to be too dark. Not sure what the advantage of shooting at F10 is on this one. I would have shot this at the lowest possible fstop so that you could have gotten more of a blur to the background. If not taken while lying down (seems your perspective here was more kneeling) then close grass often makes for very busy and unpleasing bokeh. Seems you have that here. Lower f stop would have allowed you to have a higher shutter speed and would get better exposure on the whites.