Juvenile plover at sunset

This is the same bird Isaac Grant already put up on BPN with his excellent "bird in bubbles" shot, so at the risk of doing variations on a theme, here's the best shot I got of our first-winter black-bellied plover in Queens. I wish I had more DOF, but with the low light and lack of desire to shoot above ISO 800 (can't wait to upgrade to a 5D mkIV!), I had to go wide open in order to have the necessary shutter speed. Optimization was fairly simple, just pulled up the curve slightly and did some very minor beach clean-up along with the NIK detail extractor.

1/400 @ f/4,5, ISO 800
7D mkII, 500mm f/4 IS
DPP conversion, PS optimized

Nothing wrong with photographing wide-open with a subject this size in the frame, dof does not worry me one bit here. Super nice light, and I like the raised foot. Simple but effective image.

A classic shorebird image. Funny I have a few that look exactly like this:w3. Sweet light, nice body and head angle and nice soft colors throughout.

Beautiful Simple Image. I like the three color gradients in the background and the simplicity of the image.

Thanks for sharing..

That three tone background/foreground is really stunning as is the POV. The 'glowing bird is beautiful too and nicely framed. Surprised you won't go about ISO 800 though on your 7DII. I have an 80D with only marginally better noise performance and ISO 1600 is good (but no higher) and provided you have a good NR tool like Dfine or Neat Image. But then, I like to squeeze my gear hard to see what I can get out of it. Back of the bird does look a little soft and I guess that's why you mentioned your DOF concern but not a deal breaker by any means. Thanks for sharing this wonderful frame.

Love the lighting here Jake, and you have captured a very nice pose on the bird. The BG shows the subject real well.

Will

Thanks to all for your comments! Regarding not going up to ISO 1600 from ISO 800, I don't think it would have gotten me to f/8 (my preferred minimum aperture) with enough shutter speed to take the shot. Maybe I would have gained one extra stop up to f/5,6 with the same shutter speed of 1/400, but as far as I know that change wouldn't have added much DOF and it would have definitely increased the noise. Feel free to correct me though. But you are right, the lack of focus on the back of the bird from the wide open aperture is the one thing about this shot that I don't like.