Sanderling.

[David Cowling]

Canon 5D Mk4. Canon 100-400L Mk2. Canon 1.4x Mk3
1/1250. F 8. ISO 320. Processed in ACR and PS6 Medium crop. Cleaned up beach.

[John Mack]

Like the composition with the bird small in the frame. Beach looks nice. Bird looks cruncy to me and a little bright.

[annmpacheco]

Hello David. I like the placement and HA of the sanderling, along with the wet sand colors. I think the bird is overexposed, whites lacking detail... Also, I'd clean up the extra catchlight. Not sure if it is natural or dust spots throughout the blue water but it draws my eye. Lastly, I'm curious why there is such a color change in the sand frontside of the bird? thanks

[Jake Levin]

Hi David. You've got a nice winter bird in very nice light. I agree with John that the sanderling looks a bit crunchy and bright. It might be worth pulling the curve down a bit to see how that affects the whites. The head angle of the bird and the beach setting with the wet sand and water background are both nice.

[Dorian Anderson]

Love the mellow mood to this shot. Wide crop work well given the smooth fore- and background. Love the slow transition from sand to water right at the bird. Exposure needs to be dialed down but will increase the drama of the image once done. Nice.

[gail bisson]

I really like how the sand goes from brown to blue. Good job on the clean-up you did.
Good POV.
The bird appears overexposed.
I also see a few dust spots (although perhaps they are part of the water? )-easy fix in any case.
Another quick tweek is to eliminate one of the catchlights in the eye.
Gail

[Mike Poole]

Nice and low perspective, and the clean beach looks great. As others have noted, the bird looks too bright, but a simple curves adjustment, targeting only the whites (I used a luminosity mask for ease of use) really helps

180006

Mike

[David Cowling]

To John, Ann, Jake Dorian and Gail many thanks for your comments and advice on this image; it is very much appreciated. What looks like dust spots is just OOf debris in the water, mainly clumps of seaweed. I don't really know what the lighter part of sand is caused by, I think it is a reflection of the underside of the bird but it is on the RAW file.
Thank you Mike for the re-post, it is certainly an improvement and helps me to see why the comments were made. Many thanks.

David

[Arthur Morris]

Original post is mega-over-crunched.

with love, artie