Frustration City

[Arthur Morris]

Denise and her private-day client Jon Saperia and I stayed with a family of Piping Plovers this morning for about two hours. Most of the time we photographed them from great distances with 2X and stacked TCs.... When they made their way down to the tide line to feed we sat and at times had the three tiny chicks--about eight days old--walk right in front of us. (One of the four disappeared over-night.) That's where the frustration came in; they are so, so fast and unlike the parents--step, step, step, stop, step, step, step, stop, they use a slightly different strategy; run, run, run, pause for a millisecond, run, run, run..... Most times when they were close and right down sun angle I could not even get them in the viewfinder much less focus and fire.

This image was created with the Canon 800mm f/5.6L IS lens with the 1.4X II TC, a 25mm extension tube (for a bit of additional magnification), and the EOS-1D Mark IV on the Gitzo 3530 LS with the Mongoose M3.6. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +2/3 stop: 1/1000 sec. at f/8 set manually after histogram and blinkies check.

Central sensor crop from below and behind. The usual beach clean-up.

Don't be shy; all comments welcome.

[Norm Dulak]

While I'm glad you have been able to capture an image of this bird, I find that the bird is hard to distinguish from the bright upper background. Moreover, what appears to be a shadow of the bird and other ill defined material to the right of the bird as viewed has a very unusual dark bluish cast. Finally, the dark green blob in the foreground of the bird does not IMO contribute to a positive impression of the image.

[Joe Senzatimore]

Quick little buggers , ain't they????:eek: Like the capture. I might have tried to get rid of the seaweed in front and on the left. Don't know how successful I would have been , but feel it is a distraction.
Good to see you as well. Glad your hand is doing well.

[Arthur Morris]

Sorry Dan, There is not a WHITE over 227 in the JPEG.

[denise ippolito]

Artie, The exposure looks good to me. I don't see any hot pixels. I do like the seaweed and the way it adds some color to the image. Sharp and I wish it were mine.:S3:

[Tom Rambaut]

Looks ok from a few thousand miles away. The seaweed makes me want sushi.

[Chad Caswell]

Exposure looks right on to me... Cute shot taken from such a scruffy looking guy :t3

[Dan Brown]

Artie, Looks great to me? I can't see any whites even close to blown! I like the oof seaweeds including the blue-green areas. I might evict the sharp seaweed on the left though! Of course, that might be viewed as "nature faking" by some of our newest members that don't post image?:w3

[dankearl]

Sorry, as a rank amateur, I just don't know enough.
If I had posted this, I would have been told that there was not enough contrast from the chick against the background, the foreground adds nothing and the bluish glop behind the chick is distracting.
Just my Opinion and you say you want them.

[Mike Tracy]

Adorable little chick who looks properly exposed to me. Roger would probably commend you on the phase angle. I like the position and posture of your subject.

Not keen on the kelp especially the larger piece in the background. I see bluish hues within the seaweed which I would expect in some varieties.

Is this a natural occurring catch light ?

[Tom Redd]

The exposure looks good to me from my viewpoint. Nothing blown out that I detect. I am not a fan of the seaweed, but you take what you can get and I would take this shot. Cute subject.

[Ofer Levy]

Sharp with nice detail. Agree with the comments regarding the chick being slightly too bright. Here is a repost with some selective levels and S/H adjustments and some cropping. Taking this from a slightly lower angle could have avoided having the green blob behind the bird.

[Sidharth Kodikal]

What a cute specimen. The exposure in the OP looks good to me.
I'm not a huge fan of the sea weed, but feel that without it, the image would look a bit sterile. Just wish there wasn't so much of it.
I prefer the colors and comp in the OP.

[arash_hazeghi]

nice and sharp details, the image is certainly not over exposed, agree it would have been great if it was standing on clean sand but sometimes a different angle is not possible.

[Harshad Barve]

I am loving this cutie here , exposure bang on as usual :S3:
TFS

[Craig Brelsford]

I think Artie's original image is fine. Ofer's repost is inferior; the seaweed is turning bluish. I don't see all the fuss about the seaweed; there's no way I'd clone it out, and I surely wouldn't clone out the piece to the left with the fine grains of sand. Would you really rather have an abstract image of chick and sand? Good job bagging this one, and thanks for the story, Artie.

[Mark Young]

What a very cute little bird! I actually like the way the white of the bird blends in with the sand.

[noelle zaleski]

Cute little one Artie!

I can totally understand your frustration. These little ones are so fast and unpredictable.

Not a big fan of the kelp because I do feel it dominates the image a bit.

[Arthur Morris]

I think Artie's original image is fine. Ofer's repost is inferior; the seaweed is turning bluish. I don't see all the fuss about the seaweed; there's no way I'd clone it out, and I surely wouldn't clone out the piece to the left with the fine grains of sand. Would you really rather have an abstract image of chick and sand? Good job bagging this one, and thanks for the story, Artie.

Thanks Craig. I tried for images with pure smooth wet sand BKGRs and failed. I too liked the fine grains of sand on the left seaweed and wished that I could have included more of it but that would have left the chick too centered.

[Arthur Morris]

Sharp with nice detail. Agree with the comments regarding the chick being slightly too bright. Here is a repost with some selective levels and S/H adjustments and some cropping. Taking this from a slightly lower angle could have avoided having the green blob behind the bird.

Thanks for the repost. The chicks moved so fast and so far that getting flat down on the beach was not an option unless you wanted to photograph air.

As far as the brightness, as I said, the highest RGB value in the JPEG was something like 227.... Images will often look a bit different on different monitors in different lighting but there is no accounting for Mr. Dulak's of Mr. Earl's comments.

[Arthur Morris]

Is this a natural occurring catch light ?

Good catch on the catch light; I expanded the tiny naturally occurring one.

I am pretty sure that the blue cast in the sea weed is (as one would expect) in the shadowed areas.

As above I was trying for the clean, wet sand image and failed....

[Marina Scarr]

Interesting thread. Both the OP and repost work for me. I personally like seeing this chick in its environment rather than on a stark BG. You did a good job cleaning up the beach. I like the granules of sand on the LHC seaweed. I would be very happy with this capture. These birds are VERY difficult to capture b/c they are so darn fast. Last week I had similar issue with WIPL chicks.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks Marina. I was so, so, frustrated.

[Stu Bowie]

A bit late to the party. Good low perspective Artie, with a nice angled pose. I feel the chick is separated very well from the upper BG in the OP, and just love the fluff detail. Cant decide if the legs are too big for the body, or the body too big for the legs. :w3

[Arthur Morris]

Just cotton balls on toothpicks!

[Neil Nourse]

Just cotton balls on toothpicks!Yea with a thirty knot wind behind them.

Glad you got one to stay still for a split second. Do wish the front seaweed was more IF with sand on it like the one in the corner but you gotta take what you have been given. Wish I had been there!!!

TFS Neil

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks Neil and I agree. At least they came out from the ropes....

[Robert Holguin]

Beautiful shot. I think there is enough separation between the bird and the background. I think the seaweed adds to the entire image. A very well taken shot. Well done.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks Robert for stopping by. I sort of like it myself but would have died for the clean wet sand image...

[Grace Scalzo]

Clean wet sand has been done 1000 times. I like this presentation for the added interest of the seaweed. Provides a natural frame for the little bird and enriches the image with color. Very sweet, and yes, difficult. :S3:

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks Grace. Not 1000 times by me :). This is my very first Piping Plover chick in nearly 28 years. Thanks to Denise.

[Tommy Rodgers]

I do not have enough experience to meaningfully critique an image that looks fantastic to me, but I do have a technical question. Thanks to Artie, I am all into micro adjusting lens, extender, and cameras. Do you micro adjust for the extension tube?

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks Tommy. You raised an excellent question. I will be micro-adjusting everything before Norway and will post something on the blog and likely in Photography Gear as well.

[Elinor Osborn]

OP post is my choice. Seems to me the reason these chicks closely match beach color is to help keep predators from spotting them; so I like keeping their natural coloration. The bluish shadow on the seaweed seems natural too, so no problem with that. I'd leave all the seaweed in as it gives me a feeling for the beach habitat. All this sounds as if I prefer all photos left as is. Not so, I like Artie's cleanups and adjustments which always improve the photograph.

[Maya Raut]

This is so exciting to see this baby piping plover and your description about their behavior is so true. It made me laugh.

We could not get to see the young piping plovers.
But I completely agree with what you have said about how difficult it is to photograph these small birds.
I have captured a small clip of piping plover which shows what you have written in original post.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/m_saraf/5823438136/in/photostream/

[Jon Saperia]

Wonderful image - I like that everything works so that you have sufficient DOF to even see detail in the front leg of this tiny thing. Turns out there is an instructive lesson here (at least for me) for DOF - even at f8 at the very high magnification of 1200 or 1600+ mm we are very limited (circle of confusion at 1200mm at f8 is 0.023 mm). DOF is 0.03 feet at f8 - according to the on-line calculator I used. This is a good reminder for me.

I will see if I have any that are good enough to post.

/jon

[Arthur Morris]

Raut, Cool clip--and the chicks are ten times faster!

Thanks Jon. From what I saw on your laptop you should have some great ones. Circles of confusion confuse me; I only know how to push the shutter button. I failed nuclear physics and rocket science...

[Jon Saperia]

:-)
DOF then.
/jon