red-capped plover

[greg cowle]

Red-capped plover about to take off from Thornton Beach. Some may find the foreground heavy, but it is interesting to me that all the colors there are also in the plumage. Good camouflage.
300mm, 1/2500, f4, ISO250
Greg

[David Seymour]

Hi Greg,
These tiny birds are a challenge to photograph in their very open environments at the best of times, and IMO you've done a good job here. Nice subject lighting, and the color harmony between foreground and bird is interesting. Great action pose too (again difficult to capture with these), and I'm sure the top experts on BPN will agree the head angle seems just right to give a connection with the viewer. The 'missing feet' are a problem, perhaps partly due to the low camera angle, but I think a higher camera angle may have produced a less attractive image overall (and perhaps flushed the bird as well). My only other suggestion is perhaps to clone out the darkest part of the row of ?tideline debris out to the right of the bird in the background (and perhaps also the triangular dark area at the back immediately to the right of the bird?).
Cheers, David

[greg cowle]

David, yes not easy to get a close view. I like the outstretched wings as opposed to most of the standing poses, agree on the feet. I wish I could get a bit more detail in the belly, but the light did not help, and I generally don't clone much, just my personal preference.

[John Mack]

Nice low angle and the raised wings are a plus. The bird gave a very nice pose.

[Isaac Grant]

Nice action captured here and that helps take things up a few notches for sure. As discussed the head angle is excellent. You have not posted what camera and lens were used and knowing that helps when giving a critique. The processing is off on the image as the bird and background are noisy, the image is too dark as well. I wish the feet were showing also.

[greg cowle]

Isaac this was with an Olympus micro 4/3, so the file is limited and I don't have a good process for the files. The Olympus SW is really bad... Playing around with it while my other cameras are on a slow ship to Australia.

[Arthur Morris]

I love the bird and the pose. On my (somewhat dark) monitor the brightness looks fine with nice bright WHITEs.

Three background elements bugged me; after a small crop I eliminated those using the Patch Tool, Content Aware Fill, and a refined Quick Mask for the gray blob in front of the head. All as detailed in the BAA Current Workflow e-Guide (http://birdsasart-shop.com/the-birds-as-art-current-workflow-e-guide-digital-basics-ii/), aka Digital Basics II.

with love, artie

[greg cowle]

Thanks for the repost Artie, looks good, I will get to these techniques before too long (waiting for all my gear to be shipped to my new home). This bird was in some deep shade, so the whites may not be bright enough for some, but I am fine with it this way. Greg

[Arthur Morris]

YAW. The RGB values for the WHITEs are all in the mid-240s -- more than white enough for me.

with love, artie