Greater yellow legs and frogs legs

[gail bisson]

Taken while kneeling in a foot of soft mud (with my waders on) with my camouflage sheet thrown over me.
I know some of you will dislike the busy BG but I feel the interesting action trumps the BG.
Taken at last light ~8:00PM.
Cloned a green blob under the chest and burned the brighter stalks in BG.
Cropped by 25%
Canon 1D MKIV
F 500mm lens ( sent in today for repair of broken tripod collar-sigh...)
Manual, on tripod
ISO 800
SS 1/2000
F 6.3
Comments and critiques appreciated and always learned from with thanks,
Gail

[Jeff Sorbie]

Beautiful colors Gail. Love the warm light, sharpness and the BG is fine with me. What a meal...mmmm

[dankearl]

What a cool frog! Poor guy. The bird and frog look good, the BG is attractive to me, I think another round of NR
would smooth it out and look nice.

[Marina Scarr]

I find this image very pleasing. The light and colors are gorgeous, the environment works well, and you can't beat the action/behavior. Needs a little bit of CW rotation. The easiest way to see this is to match up the bird's legs with the reflection. That is one huge frog, and I wonder how the bird is going to devour that frog??

[Lyle Gruby]

Love the action, especially the droplet of water coming down. I like to see wild animals in their environment. The only thing that bothers me is the ball of mud to the right of the bird's leg, you might try to blur the BG on the right of the frame.

[PhilCook]

Not too much wrong with this one Gail, agree the mud lump draws the eye a little but overall I don't believe this affects the image, nice light in this with a slight golden tone to it...love the frog...as indeed so did the bird

[Charles Daigle]

Sweet shot Gail. The legs look a little hot on my super bright PC monitor, but otherwise a nice image. Great job getting the image, SUPER timing. Again, may be my monitor or the downsizing for web, but is it a tad soft?

Either way, I would be super excited to get this one :D Good luck with your lens repair!

[christopher galeski]

nice image of a bird and what it feeds on,the frogs expression on its face,magic.thanks.

[gail bisson]

Sweet shot Gail. The legs look a little hot on my super bright PC monitor, but otherwise a nice image. Great job getting the image, SUPER timing. Again, may be my monitor or the downsizing for web, but is it a tad soft?

I think you are right re: a bit soft. I just figured out why...I forgot to sharpen for web. Will fix this promptly.
Thanks Charles,
Gail

[Satish Ranadive]

Great action captured.Lovely composition. Love the colors,lights and details.

[Vivaldo Damilano]

Superb Gail, love the huge catch adds a lot of interest. I would add some sharpening Well Done.

[Bill Dix]

Great action shot, Gail. Good comments above. A tiny bit of CW rotation, and a little sharpening, will help. Some of the whites are in the 250's and the sharpening may make them look over the top, so maybe toning down the highlights just a tad would help. Terrific catch.

[jack williamson]

The bg is fine with me, just the right dof in this image. Great light and eye contact from both subjects. I love all of the different colors in this.

Jack

[Grace Scalzo]

Looking forward to the sharpened version as I think this is a great story telling image. Really captured my attention. I think the overall exposure could come down by 1/3 to 2/3 but I didn't look at this in PS.

[Daniel Cadieux]

I actually love the BG, nothing to worry about here at all! Great catch, I would love to see and photograph a situation like this - it's not often we see a shorebird with a frog in its' bill. Nice light, low angle. I know you were at the mercy of your relative position to the subject, but I do wish for an overall better body angle here. Still a spectacular image, I like it ALOT!

[gail bisson]

Here is my repost with
1. sharpened for JPEG
2. A bit of rotation but keep in mind that shore was sloped
3. Removed mud mound
Gail

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Gail - nice timing with the frog, good light, colors, pose and pov. Repost is an improvement but I would run some NR on the bg.

TFS,
Rachel

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Gail, excellent perspective, and I really like the overall colours and light. Your repost has done the job with regards to the sharpening, and I felt your OP was fine with regards to rotation. I can see you have rotated it ever so slightly. Of course the 'begging' frog puts this over the top. An opportunity well used.

[Ofer Levy]

Hi Gail, lovely behaviour shot!
The only thing that bothered me is the somewhat soft head. I find the BG to be just fine, I won't remove the mud mound, I don't think it needed any rotation and legs don't look hot to me.

[John Ippolito]

This is excellent, Gail. Repost rocks. Agree on the rotation. Very, very nice. Hope you get the 500 back soon.