Muddy

[Richard Stern]

This Marbled Godwit is a rarity that was hanging out in Wolfville Harbor, Nova Scotia, recently. The only chances to get near it were totally tide (and therefore time) dependent, and thus the opportunity for less harsh lighting was very limited. Also, I couldn't get any lower without falling off a cliff, possibly drowning, and probably scaring the bird away. My self-critique is that I would have preferred softer lighting and that I had been able to get lower. But anyway I thought this was appropriate to send in for comments.

Olympus OM-D EM5 and Panasonic 100-300, hand-held.

1/640, f/6.3, ISO200, pattern metering, no flash. Raw, with crop, sharpen, nr etc. adjustments in LR4.

Thanks for looking,

Richard

[John Chardine]

Come on Richard- what's your life worth for a great image?!!!!!!!!!!!
I think you did the best you could under the circumstances. Image looks nice and sharp and the lighting is good, if harsh (as you mention). I am drawn to the little drop below the bill and the mud cloud in the water behind the rear foot.

[Ian Cassell]

Hi Richard. The bird is sharp and I love the mud drops. The lighting looked to me like too much flash, but I guess it was just hard outside light. Don't go over a cliff - you need another chance at this one!

[Kerry Perkins]

Hi Richard, were you looking at my bird history article when you decided to hang off of a cliff? Your self-critique is very good, I think softer light and a lower angle would have been nice of course. The image just seems too bright to me so I had a go at using a curves adjustment and just a bit of PS noise reduction. Lowering the brightness gives you a freebie, as you get some added saturation.

[Bob Miller]

That curves adjustment that Kerry did nailed it !

[Jon Rista]

Agreed, the curves adjustment looks great! A bit of white balance adjustment might help as well...that mud has a strong magenta tint. Slightly offsetting that to make it more brown might help as well.