Long-billed Curlew

[Aidan Briggs]

Made a couple weeks ago at the beach. These guys were actively hunting for sand crabs in the surf. Every now and then one would be surprised by a wave and take off. All I had to do was set up in front of a group and wait for one to fly. This was one of the three keepers that I got.

50D, Canon 100-400 at 400mm
1/2000 sec, f/7.1, ISO 500.
Handheld.

[Morkel Erasmus]

great incoming angle, colour, light and the OOF surf is a nice touch!

[Austin Thomas]

Great sharpness for an incoming bird. Well "locked on" with your focus technique.

I like the size and position in the frame as well.

Cheers

Austin

[Randy Stout]

Aidan:

Nice light, well exposed, surf give good sense of environment, nice angle in frame.

A well executed image.

Cheers

Randy

[Dan Brown]

Great capture Aidan! Really nice BG and sharpness. I like that you anticipated the behavior and had patience:S3:

[Joerg Rockenberger]

Great capture. I know I've tried many times myself to get the same/similar shot. Love the colors in the background, sharpness, pose are just perfect. Congrats! JR

[Dave Leroy]

Lovely composition and really like the nice soft colours.

Nice soft light as well, no shadows.

Very well done.

Dave

[Gary Esman]

Love this shot. The background and the tack sharp bird look great. TFS

Gary.

[stuart wanuck]

nice capture and great bg

[Jim Crosswell]

Beautiful image Aidan! I like the wing position, sharpness and composition.

[adrian dancy]

This appears superb in every way. If I were using the 100-400 and got shots such as this, I wouldn't be thinking of upgrading...'a bird in the hand'...so they say:w3

[Ron Bernstein]

Love it, for all the reasons stated!

[Ilija Dukovski]

Love it!. Colors, bill, eye contact.
Great flight image.

Ilija

[Patrick Sparkman]

Great capture. Love the light, the composition, the patterns on the wings, and the ocean background. Very well done! TFS.

[Ofer Levy]

What a beautiful image!!!:cheers:

[arash_hazeghi]

very nice love the details and BG. well done

[Arthur Morris]

Congrats young man. This is one of your very finest (as noted above....) Heck, it may very well be your best ever image. And as you know, I love this species.

Folks who are spending too much time lusting after the longest lenses and the latest greatest camera bodies need to take note of Aidan's gear and what he does with it.....

[Aidan Briggs]

Thanks all for the kind comments:S3: They are appreciated!

[Jeroen Stel]

Gorgeous angle and pose! Tons of detail and a fine BG!
Well done!

greetings,

Jeroen Stel

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Excellent on all fronts, Aidan. good call on the f-stop. great shot.