American Avocet at last light

[Matthew Studebaker]

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3449/3786154516_be233f15eb_o.jpg
Ashtabula County, Ohio | August | Canon 50D | Canon 600mm f4 IS | 1/500 f4 ISO 200
Shooting at f4 or nearly wide open allows the reeds in the background to create a lovely rainbow of out of focus color. By belly crawling up to the Avocets they don't mind my presence at all.

[Keith Bauer]

The BG is really special. Very nice. Like the angle, and the very shallow DOF. Looks like the Avocet was almost squinting...

[Manos Papadomanolakis]

Really...I Iove the out of focus colors,magic bg,low angle,light,pose,details!!!
Keep the great work!

[Harshad Barve]

amazing capture , super BG and expo
TFS

[Victor Soares]

Awesome colors, beautiful bird and my favourite low down angle ... magic !! Well done !!

[Alan Carr]

Great angle, and SUPER use of DoF!

[arash_hazeghi]

Nice shot Matt, love the angle details and creamy soft BG. Excellent!

[christopher galeski]

nice one Mathew,as been said great BG,bird nice and sharp,would have been magic if its head had a slight turn towards you,but still a great image.thanks.

[Art Peslak]

Nice low angle, background and exposure. Good use of shallow dof.

[Mike Tracy]

Very pleasing to view and well executed. I think if anything a head angle of just a degree or two would have made this about close to perfect. The one little darkish spot right of frame just above the ripple crest could be either cropped or cloned out.

[Gal Shon]

Well done for the belly crawling and on a fine image.
I like the colors very much, DOF, light, sharpness, BG and FG and Comp.

[Elmar Venter]

This picture has a huge WOW-factor. It is so sharp, with amazing vivid colours. The background is sublime.

[Arthur Morris]

Pretty much perfect and done in my favorite style. I only wish that the bird had not been squinting a bit when the shutter was released....

Please check your e-mail as I need some Barrow flight and date info from you.

Also, will you be at the Midwest Birding Symposium?

[Ian Mason]

Love it! Colours are sublime. I can't fault it.

[Glenn Bartley]

What more can you ask for???

Just gorgeous!

[Jim Fenton]

Love the pose, sharpness, exposure and background.

DOF is way too thin for me....they don't look this way in nature.