AOC at sunset

[Jake Levin]

The east coast probably has more oystercatchers than it's humanly possible to photograph, but every now and then, one will stand still for long enough to take a picture! There's the beginnings of a wave coming in behind him, which wasn't intentional, but in hindsight I like how it frames the the bird at the top. There was a fairly strong colour cast not unknown to those of us who enjoy shooting in the early and late hours, which I attempted to remove by desaturating the yellows and reds and masking off everything except the parts of the bird that skewed orange. Oddly enough, those four bubbles on the lower left aren't a repeating pattern; they were sitting there like that on the beach, and not the result of any cloning.

5D mkIV, 500mm f/4, 1.4x TCIII, tripod mount
1/500 @ f/6.3, ISO 1600
DPP/Photoshop

Happy summer,
Jake

[John Mack]

Classic shot of this guy. Like the low angle and the pose on the bird. Nice light as well.

[Isaac Grant]

He Jake. It was good seeing you again buddy. You have a nice pose here, perfect head angle and in beautiful habitat. That is my favorite place to shoot these birds when you get them in the receding waves. Details look very good. I would suggest you go back to the RAW on this one and start over. Your white balance is off. I also think you were a little too aggressive in removing the yellows as the legs have lost that yellowish pink hue that they have. The back when shot in warm light is a reddish brown and a bit deeper in tone. This should be an easy fix once you have the white balance correct. As always, feel free to call if you are having problems.

Here is a link to a shot that I took and posted here a while ago. Maybe the sun was a bit lower in the sky when I took my shot but the tones of the bird and the colors that I am describing should be consistent.

http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php/138766-American-Oystercatcher-at-sundown?highlight=american+oystercatcher

[Daniel Cadieux]

Good alert posture, and a clean beach. Sharp. I thought the legs looked bright, Isaac's example confirmed it. I really gotta get my butt down there one of these days...

[Mike Poole]

Definitely worth going back to this one Jake, its a nice low POV, a good pose from the OC, I know from Desoto that you can get some funky colours on these guys during the golden hour, so if the colours looks saturated in your RAW then just go with it

Mike