Seaside Sparrow

[Paul Lagasi]

Hi, I took this image at the entrance to Jekyll Island in Georgia. At high tide thise birds come in closer in large numbers in winter.
I was walking in calf deep water with waders looking for Sharptailed Sparrow's amongst the 100's of bird in front of me. This one gave me a lovely side view.
They have quite the beak/bill...most ran along the shore rather than fly.

D7000
300mm f4
1/400
f/8
iso - 500
7.9 metres
handheld
cropped

[Wheeler McDougal Jr.]

Hi Paul,
I have never seen one of these before. Great shot as I know from personal experience how hard a shot in the in the weeds can be. Did you have to remove any offending shoots? I like the image as a whole and the bird in particular. Keep up the good work.
Mac

[Paul Lagasi]

Thanks Mac...the image is pretty well as shot, only thing I did was crop...

[Satish Ranadive]

Excellent image of this cute sparrow in it's environment.

[Ryan Schain]

The background is what it is, and what it is is customary for this species (which is extraordinarily difficult to photograph properly without the use of playback). I wish for a head angle with the bird looking more towards you, and I'd probably get rid of two reeds, the one directly in front of the birds bill, and the horizontal one in the bottom left hand corner.

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Paul, I liked the habitat and the composition. Not a bird we see a shot of often. Thanks for sharing. The bird looks a bit soft...some motion blur perhaps. Since there aren't many dark areas to worry about, I'd have gone higher on the ISO and SS.

[Paul Lagasi]

Hi Kaustubh..Thank you very much...I really appreciate the comment......the bird does look soft on BPN but original is tack sharp...not sure why that happens even after posting almost 500 images.

With regards to the ISO, I've found My D7000 works best at this ISO IMO and the lens I was using (300mm f4, no VR) has a sweet spot of f8, so i generally work with whatever SS I get.

This camera and lens is very easy to handle in quick circumstances, compared to my D3S and 300 2.8, especially when slogging around in knee deep water ( and a lot less expensive if I fall in a deep hole :tinysmile_shy_t: ).

I will try to re-size the image, while maintaining the sharpness, later today...thanks again

[Dan Brown]

Great sparrow and image, Paul! I like the habitat. BTW, are you shooting raw? If not, you could start and then using Capture NX2 as a raw converter, you could reduce noise there and then open into ACR as a Tiff. I think you might be able to use your higher ISO's with fine success. Just a suggestion.