Yellow Wagtail stretching

[nick clayton]

Toft Newton Reservoir, Lincolnshire, UK. 20/04/13

Canon 7D
Canon 300mm f.2.8 II + 1.4 II extender
1/1000 @ f6.3
+1 EV
Aperture priority
ISO 400
Pattern

Levels
Saturation
Selective Color
Nik Software color Efex Pro 4 - Dfine 2.0 - background only
Photoshop USM

Canvas added to front and bottom of image

[Don Lacy]

Hi Nick, I really like the low angle and unique pose wirh nice feather detail.

[Simon Wantling]

Stunning image Nick.

[Diane Miller]

I love it!! Great pose and perfect handling of DOF, to my mind.

[Marina Scarr]

What a killer pose. It's not often that we see images with this pose. Love all the details in the feathers and those cute little feet. The sand is a terrific platform, and the low angle works so nicely here.

[Ashley Cohen]

A wonderful image, getting so close to a yellow Wagtail can be very difficult indeed. Lovely pose and POV. Only thing I can critique is perhaps a bit more contrast would make the eye pop some more. Other than that colours are spot on, saturation and tone is great.

[PhilCook]

A great example of when a subject looks so good, then fill the frame with it.
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Lovely all round Nick, love the opposing angles of the stretched out feathers and long claws stand out prominently. Really cant find much worth altering except perhaps a slight contrast tweak on the head/eye region

[Jim Thomas]

Love birds caught doing bird things. Nice shot all around. The small OOF strip in foreground disturbs me some, would like to see the focused area right to bottom of frame.

Jim

[Amy Kay]

Interesting pose and nice eye contact with a clean BG. Very nice!

[jack williamson]

Excellent image Nick. The yellows are awesome as is the pose. Love that BG.

[Mike Veltri]

Very nice, love the shallow dof and low shooting angle.

[Satish Ranadive]

Magnificent image of wagtail with stretching it's wings.
Love the pose,colors,nice details,stretched wing with raised foot, great low angle and beautiful BG.
Very nice composition too.

Regards,
Satish.

[arash_hazeghi]

nice pose and details. good sharpness and low angle you captured a very nice pose!

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

This is really nice Nick, love the pose, the low angle & details.

[David Salem]

Good job on this one Nick. Like all of it allot!! Well done

[MohsenVahedipour]

Excellent pose, IQ & shooting angle.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Excellent pose, and I love that the foot is in the clear between tail feathers...how cool is that! You also got a perfect head turn. Great colours, details, perch, BG. I know you already added some but I can't help but want even more room in front of the subject though. Very well done Nick!!

[nick clayton]

Thanks for the comments, as always it’s very much appreciated.

Ashley and Phil, I have increased the contrast slightly with an s curve in Lab color and in the lightness channel so as not to affect the yellow colour.

Jim, I added the strip at the bottom by copying this portion from another frame because I thought it looked odd having the Wagtail’s feet at the bottom edge of the image, so if you don’t mind I’m going to leave this as it is.

Daniel, I agree it is better to have more room at the front of the bird, I was just a bit concerned about stretching the front of the image too much, but I have stretched it a bit more and also increased the canvas a little bit at the back of the image.

I hate to admit it Marina and maybe I should keep it to myself but the bird is perched on the concrete of a man made reservoir, not quite as appealing as sand.

Thanks again for the comments.

[Lorant Voros]

This is way too good. I have seem tons of images shorebirds in this pose, but never one of a songbird. Awesome.

[Frank Schauf]

Nice pose and colors.

[nick clayton]

Thanks again