Under my wing - Piping Plover and chick

[gail bisson]

Canon 1D MK IV
F 500mm and 1.4x converter
Manual
ISO 1000
SS 1/160
f 6.3
Manual, on skimmer pod, cloudy am around 7:00AM during Mike Milicia's Plovers and Terns workshop in June.
Cropped by 30% and removed mound of sand on left
Comments and critiques always appreciated and learned from with thanks,
Gail
What do you think of composition?

[Satish Ranadive]

Gorgeous image of mom and chick.Love the cool expression in mom's eye and crouching pose of kid.
Beautiful BG.I like the composition as it is.
Rest as usual absolutely superb.

Regards,
Satish.

[Randy Stout]

Gail:

sweet moment, sharp, well exposed.

From a comp standpoint, my inclination would be to crop about 1/3 of the free space off the top, and maybe move them slightly to the left in the frame.

It really is all about the interaction/closeness of the two birds, since the environment is so neutral, so tighter is better here.

Cheers

Randy

[Bill Dix]

Hi Gail. Great moment, nice soft light and another terrific low POV. Randy's crop suggestions sound good to me, unless they would make too large a crop for good IQ.

[Sachin Saraf]

Gail, you captured great moment..Love the low angle, exposure,sharpness and interaction..

[David Salem]

Hi Gail,

A very nice and intimate shot. Great IQ, exposure and detail. I agree with Randy on the crop. If the IQ can handle it it will make for an even more intimate shot. Great Job!

David

[Arthur Morris]

Very sweet with an amazingly good head angle on the chick. Tire track or nest? The former I suspect. If it were mine I would take a bit off the left. SH and EXP right on. Thanks for your kind comment on the SW FLA blog post the other day.

[Marina Scarr]

Lovely interaction you captured here. Exposure looks spot on and you have nice details. Would definitely crop from the left I find the birds a tad too centered for my space. It wouldn't hurt to experiment with a tighter frame around.

[Frank Schauf]

Nice composition and excellent expsoure control and sharpness, Gail.

[Don Nelson]

Killer head angle on chick. I agree with Randy on tighter crop.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Gail, its always good to see bonding in the animal/bird kingdom, and your eye has captured this nicely. Good low angle, and complimentary colours between plovers and BG. I agree with Randy's point about some off the top, and left.

[gail bisson]

YAW.
Not a tire track, just messy sand,
Gail

Very sweet with an amazingly good head angle on the chick. Tire track or nest? The former I suspect. If it were mine I would take a bit off the left. SH and EXP right on. Thanks for your kind comment on the SW FLA blog post the other day.

Here is repost with suggested crop. This is now a 50% crop of original.

[Maya Raut]

Hi Gail,
This is really amazing capture...Sharp, well exposed and good eye contact on both birds..Low angle makes this special.
I always wanted to capture these beautiful birds with chicks under their wing on such clean beach but no luck yet...
Re post looks better.
- Maya

[dankearl]

The larger crop looks very nice to me. I think the IQ is even better for me.
Great moment and sweet scene as others have noted.

[Ken Watkins]

Gail,

What a beautiful image of "bonding", I prefer the crop in the re-post but agree with Dan about the slight drop in IQ. Nevertheless a mighty fine image

[Robert Holguin]

Wonderful image. Just love the interaction captured, excellent details, great shooting anlge, and I like the repost.
Well done.

[arash_hazeghi]

awee! this is so cute and I like the repost composition

well done

[David Salem]

Gail,

The tighter crop made a big difference. Looks Great!! Like this one allot.

David

[Melvin Grey]

Absolutely beautiful, emotive image. The IQ seems to hold up even with the new crop. Well done Gail.