American Oystercatcher at sundown

[Isaac Grant]

Here is another file from the summer that I never got around to processing. Taken at Breezy Point in Queens, New York. I set up where there was a long flat area of the beach so that when the waves receded there was that perfect sheen over the sand. Bird was kind enough to pose for me in a spot where the foreground and background blend together. It allowed enough time for 5 frames (so half a second based on a 10 frames per second 7d2). Taken in my favorite light which is the last few minutes before sundown.

Canon 7d mark ii and Canon 500 f4 ii + 1.4x iii. ISO 400, F7.1, SS 1/2000. Tripod mounted while lying in wet sand.

Converted in DPP 4.5. Shadows +1, Highlights -3. In PS I applied NR to background, sharpened and cropped about 10% off. Also lowered the saturation of the reds in the beak and applied 70 pts Cyan to the reds in selective coloring.

[Kirk Benson]

Excellent low angle work here Issac with a good light angle also. The AO shows wonderful detail and beautifully rich color, it also really pops with the lovely pastel water and BG. Terrific work, I really like it a lot. :-)

[David Salem]

Oh man, I love the way the BG melts into the FG. The bird almost looks 3D. It is so clear and separated from the BG, it looks great. Exposure, details and colors all look sweet too. Very nice Isaac.

[Joseph Przybyla]

All's been said, very nice image. Thank you for sharing, Isaac.

[Glenn Conlan]

Very nice Issac, the low perspective with a great BG sets this off

[Lorant Voros]

I love these kind of images and this is for sure a beautiful one. Simple setting and composition, low angle, nice eye contact and colors. Very pleasing!

[John Whaley]

All good. Beautiful image. Love the low angle, lighting, bg and calm water.

[keith mitchell]

Beautiful light and the bird itself looks good with plenty of detail in the blacks and white.It's interesting what you say about adding cyan to the reds something new to me but pleased to learn something different,the reds do look a bit overdone to me but after saying this I am not 100% sure on the colours of my monitor with reds being the top of the list and no other comments referring to it,great piece of work Isaac.

Keith.

[Isaac Grant]

Keith adding cyan to the reds is a great way to tone them down. Oystercatchers beaks are always a problem when you photograph these birds in direct morning or evening sun they get terribly over saturated. I think the beak as is is a true representation of how they look in this type of situation. Also all of the details are still visible in the beak so I don't think it is too hot. Keep in mind that American Oystercatcher has much more of a deep red beak as compared to Eurasian that has much more of an orange beak so that may be throwing you off a bit.

[keith mitchell]

Thanks for the explanation on this Isaac,did wonder about the difference with ours and your American Oyster catchers.Will try the cyan tip.

Keith.

[Frank Schauf]

Excellent shot with very nice soft background.