Avocet Leaving the Nest

[Brian Sump]

186548

Same series as the last "down the barrel" shot. You can see an egg in the bkg, which is why I left the sand bar and titled it accordingly.

This time I removed some blue and magentas, reduced highlights for contrast and darkened mids.

Cleaned up some bkg elements. ~ 50% crop but was taken on 45mp camera. I was hesitant to crop more.

D850
Sigma 500mm
HH
ISO 560
1/3200
f4

Reduced contrast, increased saturation and blacks, sharpen in C1P. Rest in PS with final smart sharpen 50/0.3.

[kevin Hice]

Brian love the background colors. Green always seem to work.Love the intensity of the bird. Know she is going to chase the intruder off.Maybe wish for better wing position where it doesn't intersect the head. It's what you got. TFS

[Colin Driscoll]

Great smooth light and terrific background. Nicely sharp and contrary to Kevin I don't mind the beak over the wing because the white doesn't hide the beak/head. Great series.

[Bill Dix]

Great take-off shot. Lovely BG; good choice to leave in the nest, since it tells the story. Wing position noted.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Pretty cool stuff. The wing position works for me because it is an obvious "take off" pose. I know you already cropped a lot, but I feel there is just a touch too much space above. Cropping away the top-most brown strip improves things IMO, but then you are running into extreme cropping territory. Still nice, and sharp on the face where it needs to be.

[John Mack]

Killer pose. I could see it cropped a little more if the image quality holds up. The background is killer.