American Oystercatcher

Nickerson beach, 5/15/21 at 4:09PM. Image processed in Lightroom and Photoshop.

Hand held, Small crop.

Canon 1DX MarkIII
Canon 500 f/4 IS USM
Canon Extender EF 1.4X III
ISO 1600
f5.6
1/2000sec

Nice and sharp. A bit of a plain BG, but it works well with the dark plumage of the OC. Unfortunate about the ankle bracelet.

Nicely done, John. Tough to get them in flight Good wing position.

Excellent BIF shot. Nice and sharp. Great wing position.
BG is a bit blah but I would still be very happy with this,
Gail

I like the pose, nice view of the OC. I wish it was not banded and I wish you had a better BG

TFS

John:

Nice angle in frame, full down pose, slight cant of body towards us, that signature eye. Yes, not the most dramatic background.

Well exposed overall, I might tone down the whites on the near wing just a bit and see if any more subtle detail can be teased out. A highlights adjustment would work nicely.

Cheers

Randy

Hi John ... works for me very well as presented .
Nice wings down stroke and the head angle ( very important :t3) is great .

As the BG is somewhat " boring " .... I would try and create a " creative B&W " image , and see how that does look .

TFS Andreas

A sharp action capture, so well done on that front. He pops in the high-key surrounds, but the frame looks a bit vacuous without any context (water, marsh, beach, etc).
I also think the wing stripe is a bit hot. Band is what it is!

Killer downstroke pose and sharp. You did everything right so I am not sure why this one does not sing to me. Andreas's idea for a B&W might be something you wish to explore. With a re-post of course.

with love, a