I am not going to skim this time...

On our second visit to Nickerson last year, it rained the previous night and it was a foggy morning. When we reached the beach my first reaction was Wow!
I was very excited to see so many bird species sitting in a puddle that was formed from last nights rain. All birds were enjoying the morning bath.
It was lovely morning with slow wind and sound of drops created by birds flapping their wing in water. There was a sense of happiness all around.
Also, this was my first experience to see skimmers skimming. I took many shots of skimmers doing skimming but I liked this one the most.
I acquired focus, started panning and was waiting to press the shutter down for that perfect skimming pose but this skimmer was teasing me by barely touching the water with lower mandible and not doing the skimming. You can see the thin line on water.

Hope you all enjoy this. Suggestions and comments are welcome.

Canon EOS 7D | 600mm | f/7.1 | 1/1000 | ISO 800

PP : Cloned OOF birds in BG, cropped by 40%, NR on BG and sharpening, pulled out some shadow details.


Attachment 115669

I'm impressed anybody can get an in flight shot at 600mm with such a small window of opportunity....great camera work Maya. Perfect timing with sharpness and the line trailing on the water and refection...loving it !

Hello there! Skimmers are outrageous birds and seem like a beautiful fantasy to me! Compositionally speaking, I would lop of a healthy chunk from behind the bird and a little off the top. I'd also rotate this puppy to the clockwise so as to straighten it!

Maya:
Sounds like a lovely morning.

Soft light, still water, well exposed.

I do agree about he CW rotation, look at the reflection of the feet. When you rotate, you will lose some canvas, but would trim a bit off the left probably. If the skimmer path was very distinct, then it might work to have him well right in the frame, but it is faint enough that I wouldn't let that be a major factor in my framing decision

Cheers

Randy

Thanks everyone for the suggestions, here is a quick fix. Size is slightly smaller now as I cropped and rotated Jpeg if this works I will rework on Tiff. Please let me know.

Attachment 115670

Wonderful shot. Love the light, excellent flight pose, and nice calm water. I like the repost, but like the orignal comp.
Well done.

Very Sweet Image.

nice image Satish,like thelight,and the pose,like both posts.thanks.

Hi Maya, well exposed on the skimmer, and you have captured a good flying pose. Comp wise, the line of the bank and skimming line seem to be parallel, so I would give this some more CW rotation, and take some off the bottom.

Normally, I would always try to get more space in front of a moving subject than behind, but in this case I actually prefer the skimmer all the way to the right because of the long line it has created. In other words, I would burn the line a bit crop it a bit more on the right.

As for the rotation you could try to level that line in the water the skimmer has created - that will help.

Very nice skimming action captured. I think it still needs a little bit of more rotation.

Thanks again for suggestions. Here is re post with some more correction. Hope this works.
Since this skimmer was not flying parallel to the bank and there was natural slope which I saw for myself is what I was trying to represent. After final version now I can see CW rotation actually improved it. Learned something :S3:


Attachment 115688

Much better. A very nice image now. Indeed! Lovely!

Your last one does the trick!
Nice job getting this and recomposing. Well done.

Great exposure and love still water.

Well done on the repost.

Gorgeous image. Great pose,beautiful colors and lights. I like the repost.

nice skimming and light but the IQ is not great. I'm not seeing much feather detail in whites or blacks and the eye looks soft, I hope you can get one closer next time!

TFS