Snowy Plover

[Dan Brown]

This capture was made last weekend on the Carmel River State Beach, Monterey Co. CA. I was able to do a belly crawl to within 10 feet or so. PP'ed in ACR and CS3, selectively sharpened with USM and Nik Sharpener Pro. C&C welcome.

Camera Model: NIKON D300, handheld with shoulder stock
Shutter speed: 1/500 sec
Aperture: 8
Exposure mode: Manual
Flash: Off
Metering mode: Multi-segment
ISO: 400
Lens: VR 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6D
Focal length: 400mm
Focal length: 600mm (in 35mm film)
VR Image Stabilization: On
AF mode: AF-C

[Daniel Cadieux]

Very cute, and good job on the belly-crawl. Personally I would crop away about half the OOF FG, as I find it too large. A bit of NR on the BG would be great too.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the angle, mood, sharpness and BG. I agree regarding cropping some off the bottom. Did you add canvas at the bottom or clean below the bird? Is this bird nesting or resting?

[Harshad Barve]

lovely angle HA , sharpness & BG , Another vote for cropping OOF FG
TFS

[David Fletcher]

Ditto suggestions already made. great eye contact, HA and details. Nice one Dan.

[denise ippolito]

Very nice low angle and the details look great Dan. Really nice HA and I love the little sand hole it's in. Great job w/ the belly crawl!!

[Dan Brown]

Thanks all for the comments and suggestions. The bird is resting and yes, I QM'ed a little bit in the OOF FG area. Here's a repost with suggested inprovements. Thanks again for the help, I always seem to miss things!!:p

[Phil Ertel]

Hi Dan, The repost looks great. The low angle of capture and bird partially obstructed by the sand makes this an interesting image in my opinion. Well Done!

[denise ippolito]

Nice repost Dan!!

[Craig Thompson]

Hi Dan,

I don't think you "missed" anything! I like both versions! I do tend to lean a bit more to the second in preference, but if I had never seen it, I would have been plenty happy with the first!

I am also impressed with the fact that this composition really works even with the focal point of the image, (...the birds face and eye) pretty much dead center! I haven't seen very many compositions or subjects that pull that off!!

This one does!! :D

Nice image!!
Craig

[edgar-junior]

NIce low angle and detail ...;)

[Ilija Dukovski]

Very nice and gentle image, I love the bird the detail and sharpness.
Also nicely placed in the sand, bit different than usual. The dark blue color
of BG is great too. Like it a lot!