Purple Sandpiper #3

Another from Barnegat the other day.

D7200, 500f4, ISO 800, 1/2000s @ f/7.1 manual.

This is really nice!
Great light and IQ and POV.
My only suggestion would be to crop the bottom up to the top of your signature.
I like the food slime in the beak and the specular highlight within. Looks like he is going to swallow a sparkle!
Gail
It seems like you guys are able to get lower than usual at barnegat. Has something changed ther?

Thanks Gail. Yes, I think a bit off the bottom will help. I'll look at it.

We weren't able to get lower, but the sandpiper occasionally got higher. The tide was the highest I've ever seen in my visits there, which probably had something to do with it. The downside was that many of the rocks that the Harlequins like to hop onto were covered, so the few Harlies just swam around without offering good photo ops.

I like this one too. The blues are nice and rich. I too saw the highlight in the bill, but Gail has written about much better than I could think of so I will go with that! Nice details on the sandpiper.

Beautiful light and details and I really love the blue background.

Bill:

Agree with Gail's observations overall. I might try a version without the highlight, just to compare. Just as something to try, I could see lifting the lower end of the midtones just a sliver. I thought it made the bird pop from the background a bit more. Purely a matter of taste.

Cheers

Randy

Hi Bill, good eye level capture, and I like the angled pose. Good DOF on the sandpiper, and the water between the bill certainly adds interest.

Beautiful image Bill. I like the pose, the colours and the BG. Nice details and eye contact.

Another very nice capture of our now famous Purple Sandpiper, Bill. Like the expression on his face, and the momentary break in foraging for food. Nice and sharp too.


Geoffrey

You and Geoffrey created such nice images of this little one. So much interest here, between the feeding and the cute feet hugging the rock. Personal taste, but it seems just a bit dark and the blues quite saturated. Maybe play with that a bit and see what you think.

Thanks for all the useful comments. Here's a repost adopting most of them. I cropped up a bit from the bottom, made a Curves adjustment slightly lifting the lower end of the mid-tones on the bird, and very slightly desaturated the blue water. Those who loved the rich blue may have preferred I leave it alone. What do you think?

Nice image, Bill and the repost is an improvement. A shorebird I wish to have one day.

Yes Bill RP does it for me !!! Like the overall color palette and the crop / comp .
Lovely details and some rich tones !!!

TFS Andreas

Thanks Karl and Andreas.