Whimbrel in flight

[Dan Brown]

Young Long-billed Curlew fighting the delta breeze at the Yolo Basin Wildlife Area, Yolo co, CA. I miss ID'ed this guy as a Whimbrel based on the bill length, Oops:D.
Shot with a shoulder stock mounted Nikon D200, 80-400mmVR at 400mm, 1/2000th sec, f8, manual exp mode, spot metered, ISO 400, fill flash with Nikon SB800, high speed sync -2.0. Cropped and PP in CS3.

Dan Brown

[Doug Brown]

Nice eye contact and sharpness Dan! The position of the sun creates a shadow across the bird that I wish were not there. You did a good job of pulling detail out of the shadows, but at the expense of some noise. I would move the bird a little left in the frame. Thanks for posting!

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Hey Dan, great image of a great bird, the only thing I find not too good is the color on the sky, don´t get me wrong but it looks kind of over worked. May be you could work on it a bit more desat.

[Wayne Richardson]

Hi Dan

Nice flight capture, but this is a Long-billed Curlew. The rather short bill (almost certainly a juvenile male) may have prompted you to go for Whimbrel. However, note the overall cinnamon plumage tones & lack of head stripes.

IMO the image may benefit from touch more sharpening, especially around the head.

On another point would FF have had any impact given camera settings & your distance from subject?

Cheers: Wayne

[Dan Brown]

Oops:D, Thanks Wayne, you are on top of things! I changed the title. Here's a repost with some of the recommended changes, desat, move to left, selective sharpening. As for FF, I neglected to mention that I was using a Better Beamer and the bird was well within it's range at ISO 400. Dan

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

You nail it Dan!
Now looks wonderful and more sharp. These two birds look alike a lot. I don´t blame you since I also believed it was a Numenius phaeopus.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

The saturation in the repost looks better. I wish for a slight head turn toward you and agree that the shadow on the body is quite strong.

[WIlliam Maroldo]

Technically very good image, other than wing position ibeing less than ideal, as well as the viewing angle. I'm sure that is what caused the shadow problem. With what was captured, Dan you did a great job post processing. I've included a photo of my own of a long-billed curlew in flight. The wing pattern is identical. The image I have included was done before I had the pleasure of being a member here, and I'm sure I could (with what I've learned here over the last month) do almost as good a job post-processing as Dan has done here, but I didn't with this image. The length of the bill in Dan's post seems a little short, and at first sight I would have thought it a whimbrel as well. ~onlybill

[Dan Brown]

Thank all for the comments and the help. William, if you keep gleaning info from this www, you will definately improve. Your Curlew shot is close! and a little PP in CS3 would inprove it a lot. I have learned MUCHO in the last few months participating here, and in fact, this shot was made possible due to a tip gleaned here to have the sun at my back and the wind blowing into the flying birds face, slowing them down. I recognized these conditions and that the birds were wanting to fly into the wind so I positioned myself and waited! I will be returning to that spot soon! Dan