White-fronted Plover

[Arno Ellmer]

A belated wish to all for a very good, healthy year 2013 , loaded with awesome opportunities and images.
I have just returned from a 10 day visit to Marina Beach on the Kwazulu Natal South Coast.
The photo opportunities were few and far between ,with almost every morning and pm (except for two ) heavily overcast and very windy in the afternoons.
I nevertheless managed to capture a few images in the short window available , amongst others this wing stretch by this little guy.

Canon 1DX
500mm +1.4x
f/7.1
1/2500
ISO 400
Manual
Hand held ( down on my knees )

[Dudley Watson]

Lovely low angle with excellent detail. Best wishes to you for 2013.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Couldn't as for better, a great pose very sharp excellent detail and fine exposure, all topped off by a demure complimentary background. It's a good way to start the New Year!

[Karl Egressy]

Nice stretching pose, excellent low shooting angle and background, Arno.

[Daniel Cadieux]

I love shorebird wingstretches, and this one is no exception! Great warm tones, pose, details. Nice clean sand, but I have a suspicion you may have removed some elements? The lower edge has some repeating patterns and some dof weaving in and out along the bottom...

All the best for 2013 to you too!!

[Geir Jensen]

Great work . I love it

[Sidharth Kodikal]

I love wing stretch poses, especially when they're captured like this - perfectly parallel to the sensor and subtle head turn for excellent eye contact. Light is great and I love that he's standing atop a small mound.
If IQ permits, I'd crop this a bit more and remove some from the top.
Best wishes for 2013, Arno.

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Arno, great pose indeed. Nice subtle head turn. Exposure looks perfect. Well done getting low.

If mine, I'd take a chunk off the top to make it a bit tighter. I'd also try a round of sharpening in the head.

[Arthur Morris]

It would be hard to imagine a more perfect wing-stretch shot of a plover. Yours has everything: perfect techs, a killer wing stretch, bird on a little mound of sand, and a good head angle.... One great chance taken advantage of is better than 1000 lousy photo opps!

[dankearl]

Terrific Arno, the wing is great and the one legged pose very nice.
Maybe a slither off the top for me.
I look forward to many more nice photos from you this year!

[PhilCook]

Very nice Arno, lovely wing stretch on his little private mound , and like his mound being sharply in focus as well....maybe crop a little off the top

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Arno, great low angle, and the DOF is perfect. The feather detail shows up very well, and the colour of the BG complements the plover nicely.

[Arno Ellmer]

I love shorebird wingstretches, and this one is no exception! Great warm tones, pose, details. Nice clean sand, but I have a suspicion you may have removed some elements? The lower edge has some repeating patterns and some dof weaving in and out along the bottom...

All the best for 2013 to you too!!

Hi Daniel,
Thanks for the comments. Always appreciated and learnt from. You have pointed out some sloppy pp work on my part of the foreground.I went down low on my knees and the image showed a small oof sand ridge ,which was really irritating , so I removed it and did a lousy job of it ! Also forgot to mentioned it in my introduction !!

I will repost a reworked image incorporating all the constructive comments.