Few birds are more common along the shores of China than the Kentish plover. I was on the mattress in a fish pond at Yangkou, Jiangsu, three hours north of Shanghai on the East China Sea; I'd just completed my duties as photo tour guide and was hungering for more. Kentishes are among the most accommodating of shorebirds; moving silently on the mattress, I was able to crawl to 7.5 m of this juvie in fresh plumage.
Device: Nikon D3S
Lens: VR 600mm F/4G
Focal Length: 600 mm
Aperture: F/9
Shutter Speed: 1/3200
Exposure Mode: Aperture Priority
Exposure Comp.: -0.33
ISO Sensitivity: ISO 1600
Metering Mode: Center-Weight
Subject Distance: 7.5 m
Vibration Reduction: Not Used
Photoshoppery: Cloned out some poop and tiny stubby plants.
A lovely bird and terrific pose. I like the comp and the silky BG. I might have been tempted to clone out the remaining two stubby oof twigs. It feels like it needs some rotation but that's probably because the ground was sloping.
Hi Craig, super close up, and lying on your mattress has created a nice low perspective. Love the look back pose, and I like how the line of the beak follows the slope of the beach. You were there, so Im sure the slope was as captured.
I like the pose and the IQ.
I would definitely continue with the eviction of grasses (esp OOF brown blade) and crop a bit of the OOF foreground away. This would also give you less of a squarish crop.
Gail
I enjoy the pose, and slightly off angle light quality that provided some soft shadow play and
dimension on the bird. Very nice low angle. Compositionally, cropping a bit off the bottom seems like
a reasonable idea, so I agree with Gail on that. The blade of grass in front of the bird that intersects
the hind claw is only slightly bothersome, and is so low contrast anyway, that it's not worth cloning out in my opinion.
What strikes me is the detail in the feathers. Just gorgeous. Along w/ some of the others I would clone out the little twigs and rotate. Obviously nitpicking since the image is beautiful. (gt)