Climax

[john j. henderson]

Mating American Ostercatchers on the beach in Chincoteague, Virginia. If you look closely, you can see the moment of climax for the male (top bird). Canon 1D Mk2n, 600mm lens, 1.4x converter, ISO 400, f8 (before my change to Nikon). I would have preferred the near raised wing not to intersect the head and I would have preferred the male bird be looking a bit more toward the camera, nevertheless, I thought the photo was acceptable given the capture of this special moment in time.

All comments welcome; thanks for looking.

[Phil Ertel]

Hi John, I like the interaction that you captured. I also find the inclusion of the habitat pleasing. I agree with your self critique. In addition, there are some blacks and whites on the top bird on that are blocked. Thanks for sharing.

[Juan Aragonés]

Very good selfcritic John. I like the eye contact of thefemale and the action a lot. The light is very intense and dinamyc range is affected (whites seems to be very bright and blacks show very few details). If this image is a RAW capture I suggest to make a double RAW conversion, something like HDR, to save extract as much information as possible from the whites and blacks :)

[john j. henderson]

Very good selfcritic John. I like the eye contact of thefemale and the action a lot. The light is very intense and dinamyc range is affected (whites seems to be very bright and blacks show very few details). If this image is a RAW capture I suggest to make a double RAW conversion, something like HDR, to save extract as much information as possible from the whites and blacks :)

I believe I pulled in my blacks a bit to much on the levels layer. The whites were at bit hot. Clearly my fault, trying to save the blacks and lost the whites, borderline dynamic range.