Black Bellied Plover

[Aravind Krishnaswamy]

I usually avoid having ocean water in the frame as I find its brightness to distract and take away from the main subject. In this case, I'm not quite sure why but I like it. Was taken on Santa Barbara beach in very early morning light.

[Craig Brelsford]

Good low angle, the flanks are getting hot and I'd like his position to be less turning away from you. I love the foam.

[Randy Stout]

Aravind:

Congrats on your first image post. I think the water works here because the luminosity range is subdued in the photo, without a huge dynamic range, so the highlights aren't as distracting as often the case with water. The soft pinks here are attractive.

Excellent low angle as Craig mentioned. The angle of the body in the frame is a bit away, but the head is back around to almost parallel to the image sensor, which helps.

Be sure to include all your technical details, camera, lens, post processing info in your posts. It really helps understand and critique an image.

In particular, I am curious about your shutter speed, because of the appearance of the water.

Cheers

Randy

[Danny J Brown]

Aravind,

Good choice to leave the water in on this image because it is foamy and beautiful. Ocean water often adds interest to photos featuring wading birds and I really love seeing it, perhaps because I live in Missouri.:) Your black-bellied plover looks nice and sharp with good color and the fact that it is angled away a bit allows us to see the detailed patterns on its back while still getting a good look at the eye as the bird has a nice head turn. Overall, a really nice first post. Keep 'em coming!

DB

[Aravind Krishnaswamy]

Thanks Craig, yes if the head were turned just a little bit more towards me I agree it could be better. The flanks are getting a little hot. I have gone back and done a very small amount of local adjustments in LR to bring them down.

Randy, here are the details:
1D4, 500 f/4 IS, f/7.1, 1/640s, ISO 400. Shot handheld @ around 7:06 AM. Post processing in LR which includes a 4 degree rotation correction, cropping (mostly of the top for composition). A small bump in vibrance and minor tone curve adjustments. The subject was selectively sharpened in PS.

Thanks Danny. Thats why I love early morning light. Its so soft so its easier to not blow the whites.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Awesome first photo post! Great low angle as already mentioned, and the water/foam looks sublime. I usually like the included ocean water, but like Danny I live in the interior of the continent so in times of freezing rain like today it refreshes the mind:cool:

Just a bit better head angle would have been excellent, and I am glad you went ahead and retouched the "hot" spots...

Looking forward to more!

[Paul Guris]

Love the foam edge between the water and the shore. I might try to lighten up the photo just a bit to bring out the details in the bird some more, but not if you end up losing the general low light effect.

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Welcome...terrific first post. loved the head angle here as the Plover seems like enjoying the sunset. The wave adds a lot and u got your shooting angle right. I like the pano crop but would love see a tad more room at the top. Keep 'em coming.