Skimmer portrait

[Jake Levin]

I got a few of these shots with slightly different head angles this spring. I like the pose here the best, although others had a cleaner blue background. I took the picture in strong evening light, and many thanks are due to fellow BPN'er Isaac Grant for working with me on the phone and helping me eliminate a truly nasty orange-yellow cast from the image. Now I have some tricks up my own sleeve in case the same situation presents itself! I don't know why camera sensors love oversaturating the yellows in that wonderful late afternoon to evening light, but I'm now realizing that if you're going to shoot in that light, especially when the birds have white feathers, you're going to need to tweak the colour in post-processing.

Approach and execution was a long commando crawl through the sand. I had the tripod quite low, but not flat on the ground; maybe about 18 inches off.

1/500 @ f/8, ISO 400
Canon 5D mkIV, 500mm f/4, 1.4x TC III
DPP/Photoshop
80% crop

Thanks for looking,
Jake

[Isaac Grant]

Looks great Jake. Blacks and whites both look excellent. Great fine feather details. A solid portrait! Funny I wrote my critique before I read what you wrote. I forgot about that conversation :Whoa!:

[Bill Dix]

A fine portrait, with good exposure and nice detail. Well done.

[Alex Becker]

Good detail throughout and a nice BG. Catchlight looks nice too. I like the bit of sand on the beak. TFS,

[Daniel Cadieux]

Looks great! I especially like the details and textures on the bill. Careful with the sharpening halos.