Common Snipe

[Iain Barker]

I noticed this Snipe coming towards me as it flew for the cover of the nearest bank and managed to get a few shots.
The whole lower left of the frame was taken up with the OOF vegetation the bird was flying to. After some debate I decided to clone out all the vegetation to leave a clean foreground. I am happy with the result but still unsure about the original with the OOF vegetation.

Nikon D7000 300mm f4 af + 1.4x tc. 1/4000 sec f5.6 ISO 800. Manual exposure. This was one of my first attempts at manual exposure and realise I could have lowered my ISO and still had a high shutter speed but the changing light mean I was constantly switching between 1/1000 and 1/4000 as the sun came in and out of clouds.

Any C&C welcome and appreciated. My first post outside Eager to learn.

[jack williamson]

This is very unusual for two reasons--I think that this is the first flight shot of a snipe that I have ever seen and it being over water too! I cannot tell at all where you removed elements from this image, excellent clone work.

Jack

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

I like the flight/gliding pose here and the fact that you have some light on the bird. I would prefer a tighter crop as a personal choice

[Sarah Jessup]

We have snipes around here, and I see them perched not infrequently. I consider it a challenge to even see one flying. Good work.

[Iain Barker]

Thanks for the comments so far. I too have never seen Snipe flying out in the open before taking this picture and I was glad to have captured it. There were around four or five in the same area and I have wondered if some were juveniles and if this was the reason for this behavior.

Cheryl, this was already a crop of around 50% of the full frame so I am not sure the image quality would be good enough to crop further. I agree and would normally prefer a tighter crop.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Iain, well placed in the frame, and the 'gliding' pose looks good. You are happy to capture one flying, I dont have a single snipe in my files.

[Iain Barker]

Hi Stuart thanks for the feedback.
I think we sometimes look at the exotic species photographed by other members from countries other than our own and forget how lucky we are to have bird we consider common ourselves.