Putting on the brakes!

[Bill Holsten]

American Avocet breeding female photographed a few days ago at San Elijo Lagoon. In a perfect world I would like a HA with a bit more eye contact, but birds look straight ahead when they land and any improvement in HA would be at the expense of the nice view of the backs of the wings (the Avocet's strong suit in my opinion). On balance, I'll take it!

1D MK IV, 300mm+2X, ISO 640, 1/3200", f/9

C&C welcome and encouraged,
Bill

[arash_hazeghi]

looks nice with breeding colors, wish he was landing towards you

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Bill, well timed for the touch down, together with the splayed wings. I can see your thinking on a vertical, but as the whole reflection is not visible, I would maybe have gone with a horizontal here, and take off the bottom. I agree a better angle would have been first prize.

[Doug Brown]

<embed id="application/x-exifeverywhere" type="application/x-exifeverywhere" width="0" height="0">Beautiful breeding plumage Bill. Excellent comments above. I agree with Stuart; with a stronger reflection I would have gone vertical. As presented a horizontal crop might work better.

[Bill Holsten]

I must admit it is a cleaner image! I did consider a landscape format, but didn't get around to cropping it that way so I could compare the two formats side-by-side.

Thanks,
Bill

[Doug Brown]

<embed id="application/x-exifeverywhere" type="application/x-exifeverywhere" width="0" height="0">Much stronger with a horizontal crop. I'd go with a 4x6 aspect ratio though.

[Jonathan Ashton]

I agree horizontal, I love the particular moment, just before the water ripples have had a chance to spread.

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

loved the water here. agree that horizontal is the right thing to do here. you did well protecting the whites. If mine, I'd raise the mid tones in processing this one.

[Gerald Kelberg]

Hi Bill, I like your image - I like all Avocet images, in fact, and this is very nice with good light and detail.

But, excuse me, there is one thing I don't like about it - it is a soap-box thing, I'm sorry! Where the bird is in focus, there should also be water in focus on the same plane, but you have added blur or extra NR and blurred all the water in front of the bird. In my seldom humble opinion, that just doesn't look right. I see it from time to time here and it just bugs me!

Best wishes,

Gerald