Morning Bath for a Lesser Yellowlegs.

[Daniel Cadieux]

I was following two Lesser Yellowlegs yesterday morning when the one to my right decided to take a dunk 12 feet away from me. Cool!

Canon 7D + 100-400L @300mm, manual exposure, evaluative metering, 1/800s., f/7.1, ISO 400, natural light, handheld, FF (0.35 CW rotation and corners cropped off), a few spots in the water patched out, "cooled" the water's blues via "Selective Color" (reduced the yellows in them).

[Jim Fenton]

Cool pose, beautiful light and I love the water drops in front and especially the water wrapping around the neck.

Reflection works well with the ripples on the water.

I would lighten the back end of the bird a bit and would remove the one little white thing at the birds neck / back intersection on the reflected image.

I might actually try this with the catchlight removed on the reflected image as the elongated up and down mini dumbell appearance (no..I wasn't speaking of myself) is a bit distracting.

Overall, lovely

[Arthur Morris]

Love the necklace of water and the large drop on the bird's breast. I am fine with the shading on the back. Great job of getting the perfect head turn to go with the off-angled light. REFLs are killer. This is a moderately worn juvenile.

[Melissa Groo]

What a dreamy shot, Daniel, love everything about it. The light, the reflection, the water drops frozen in time. Perfect angle on this, low but still able to catch that reflection. Nice!!!!

[Ofer Levy]

Sweet shot indeed! Not crazy about the slightly oversharpened and 'doctored' eye.

[Randy Stout]

Daniel:

Lots of good input. I too like the water necklace. I have had lots of waterfowl images with the elongated catchlight in the reflection, and will remove it if too distracting. This one isn't very bright, so doesn't bother me much.

Cheers

Randy

[Doug Brown]

The water streaming from the neck makes this shot for me Daniel. I also like the droplets in front of the bird; kind of shows you where the bird's been. Nicely exposed with great eye contact.

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

I think it's great. The water color and ripples are great. I especially like the far right hand water drops, the water necklace and the great light reflecting off the water in front.

[RakeshDhareshwar]

What makes the image for me is the reflection ripples and frozen water drops and then the bird itself !!!!

[christopher galeski]

nice one Daniel,nice light,like the water drops round its neck,and the two above the ripples.wel done.

[Chad Caswell]

Great image Dan, and some wonderful comments, I also see a CCW rotation needed, love the water necklace too. Print it!

[noelle zaleski]

I really like the reflection on this one Daniel. It is fun to watch them take a bath :S3: