Ruddy Turnstone Eating Jellyfish

[Patti Edens]

Yesterday afternoon, at East Beach in Galveston, I saw several birds snacking on the jellyfish that had washed ashore. I took several shots, but this was the best I could do. It was very difficult to get just one bird isolated. They were chasing each other off and running all around.

Conditions: Overcast and very windy
Canon 50D with 400mm prime (35mm equiv. = 640mm)
1/800, f6.3, ISO 160

I cropped (still dreaming about a 500mm lens) and then just the normal processing.

[Todd Frost]

Nice moment captured. Would have preferred to have eye contact with the turnstone. Could you or better yet did you make more images with a different camera position Crop wise I think you could take some from the top putting it into a pano format. TFS
Todd

[Arthur Morris]

I like the careful framing, the bird's foot on the jellyfish, the bird's reflection, and the way-cool jellyfish. It needs a bit more contrast and darker mid-tones. The big problem is that the bird is angled away from you and there it is thus difficult to see the eye at all. A crop from the top would be in order; ask yourself: what does that large expanse of detail-less white do for the image?

[Patti Edens]

Thanks much Todd and Artie! Great feedback and much appreciated.

I can't do much about the head angle unless I go back out and try again which I might do tomorrow.

But, I did crop quite a bit off of the top, a tad off the right side and a bit off of the oof foreground. I also cloned out a dark spot at the new top. I added some contrast and increased the midtones - hopefully not too much.

I definitely like it better. Now I just need to go shoot again and keep at it until I get the right head angle.

Thanks again,
Patti