Western Sandpiper

[Dave Leroy]

BG colour may not be to every one's liking, but it is pretty much what came out of camera. Cropped a bit from right and top.
50D, 500mm + 1.4TC, 1/1000, f/5.6, EC 1+1/3, ISO400.

[Don Hamilton Jr.]

Dave, really cool, might have a cropped a bit of the extra space! A Different pose for sure, would like some eye contact. Nice exposure, looks like the 5.6 is running out of DOF, on the poofed out weathers.
THKS For Sharing:
Don

[Judy Lynn Malloch]

Sweet pose. I would like to have seen a tad more eye contact and IMO I would crop this a bit tighter. More off the right, top and bottom. Many thanks for sharing.

[subhrashis]

I like the bird and the ripples a lot ..
Do you have one with the whole reflection? or if you are not averse to heavy cloning you could also try cloning out the sand llc with the pure colour, and see how it looks..

[Austin Thomas]

Well exposed Dave I have no problem with the BKGR.
I would have liked all of the reflection ideally.

tfs

Austin

[Phil Ertel]

Hi Dave,
I like the pose with the bird staring at us. I see good details and the image appears sharp. I don't mind the color of the background. However, the the dark bit in the upper left hand corner (ULC) and the dark bands in the lower left corner (LLC) are somewhat distracting to me. If it is not against your personal ethics I suggest removing the dark areas. To show you what I mean, I have attached a repost. I cropped the image to move the birds head close to the rule of thirds which also removed the dark area in the ULC. I used a quick mask to remove the dark bands at the bottom in the LLC. I also lightened the bird a little and removed the hint of blue in the feathers. It is up to you if it helps or not and you should decide on what you like. I am just presenting as something to consider as this is what I would do if this were my image.

Thanks for sharing as I have enjoyed this image.

[subhrashis]

As I said, great image, and the repost improves it IMO...

[Dave Leroy]

Thanks everyone for the comments and suggestions.

The birds were very busy feeding and it was hard to reduce ss to get more dof.

Phil, I like the repost a lot. :) Thanks for taking the time. It is a much nicer comp. and the bird is much more presentable. I must admit, I was attracted to the bit of sandbar.:cool:

Dave