Piping Plover Wing Stretch

[gail bisson]

I guess my big question here is-we can't see the feet in this image.is this an image killer?
Of course I wish there was no bands on the legs but all of our piping plovers are banded in Nova Scotia.
I have tried for a long time to get a good wing stretch image of a PP. You have to have the camera on the bird when they do it as there is absolutely no indication when they will do the wing stretch.Has nothing to do with preening or bathing behavior.
I love the BG and the wing stretch and the HA but...
What are your thoughts on this one?
Canon 1DX
600mm and 1.4x
ISO 1600 SS 1/1250 f 8
Cropped and basic PP in Lighttroom Classic and Photoshop CC 2018. Nothing added or cloned
Comments and critiques always appreciated and learned from with thanks,
Gail

[Joseph Przybyla]

Hi Gail, I sure would have wished the bird would have climbed to the top of the hill or maybe set up a little higher if that would have captured the feet. I would keep it until I could replace it with a better one. As always techs spot on. Good timing to capture the behavior. Thank you for sharing.

[Bill Dix]

Your self-critique is spot-on. The wing stretch is perfect, and the BG is lovely. A keeper in my book.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Beautiful shot Gail as you say pity about the feet but it really is a good shot.
Just a suggestion you may wish to consider lifting the dark plumage-around the neck, also if you apply a luminosity mask you will get more detail out of the underside of the wing and flank.

[arash_hazeghi]

I like the stretch and the light, i don't mind not seeing the feet but the band is a bit distracting. this image is also a bit soft and noisy wonder if it is from the processing

[annmpacheco]

Hi Gail, great wing stretch despite the hidden feet. The image appears to be noisy and dull... Excellent timing on the stretch!

[Isaac Grant]

It is so cool that you get to see Piping Plover on that rocky terrain. Around New York City we only get them on sandy beaches so never really an opportunity for any other types of shots of them. You have a nice wing stretch here and perfect head angle. Not sure this one is a keeper though as the bands are distracting and the feet are not showing. I agree re the noise. Should not be so noisy at ISO 1600. Might want to revisit the processing on this one.

[William Dickson]

A keeper in my book Gail. Very well captured. Look the pose.

Will

[John Mack]

You caught the wing stretch perfectly. The composition is quite nice. Love the background colors. The bird looks sharp to me.

[gail bisson]

It is interesting to note that those of you who have 27" monitors see the image as soft but those of us with 21" monitors see the image as sharp.
On my 21 " Mac, monitor the image is tack sharp.
The atmospheric condition on this morning was sunny with fog drifting in and out of the beach. Perhaps that is why Ann sees it as dull.
In any case, this image appears to be a bust :e3!
On to the next one!

[Arthur Morris]

I'm with Arash on this one. The bands bug me a lot more than the hidden feet (which really do not bother me at all). One my 15" MacBook Pro with retina display the image looks razor sharp with plenty of fine feather detail.

with love, artie

[Isaac Grant]

Gail I think the larger monitors are vitally important to bird photography. Fine feather details are so important to the look of a shot. If it looks good on a 27" 5k or 32" 4k screen then you know that the image is 100% tack sharp. It is much easier for an image to look good on a smaller monitor with more pixels per inch like a retina display. As the monitor gets smaller and the pixel depth increases, then the images will look even better. That is why so many images look fantastic on a phone, but when viewed on a monitor look different. Or even the same goes for the back of the camera. You think you nailed something and then get it home and find out the image is not as sharp as it looked on the back of the camera. I think many images when viewed on smaller monitors will look good but when viewed on the larger monitors you really can see every flaw in them and you can see things that you did not see in the smaller monitor. Now that is not to say that there is something wrong with this shot, but it will look different on different screens. I suspect that some of that is what people are noting on my Vermilion Flycatcher shot. On my late 2017 5k it looks 100% spot on perfect. Could not look better. But depending on what it is being viewed on it may look over sharpened or having too much contrast (anyway it is hard to get a more contrasty bird than an adult male Vermilion!) On all of my images I blow up the RAW to at least 200% in DPP to make sure the image is tack sharp before I even consider converting to TIFF and importing into PS. Looking at images on the large screen at 200%+ is the great equalizer and reveals every flaw. So for us on BPN or other places on the web who are viewing images on different screens it becomes really hard to know exactly how to process them sometimes. What looks good on the 32" NEC or Eizo and then a step down like the recent imacs, may not look the same on the smaller monitors. But even worse is when stepping up. As only the best of the best can pass the test on the larger quality monitors.

[arash_hazeghi]

It is interesting to note that those of you who have 27" monitors see the image as soft but those of us with 21" monitors see the image as sharp.
On my 21 " Mac, monitor the image is tack sharp.
The atmospheric condition on this morning was sunny with fog drifting in and out of the beach. Perhaps that is why Ann sees it as dull.
In any case, this image appears to be a bust :e3!
On to the next one!

I don't have a 27" monitor. I use a 32" NEC, I also checked on my 24" office monitor both looks a bit soft and the noise is there too. but some times, it does depend on the monitor. generally images that look OK on low res monitors may not look that good on 4K/5K screens but not the other way round.