A hop, skip and a jump!

[gail bisson]

OysterCatcher at Fort DeSoto, Florida 7:30AM. I love the toenails on this gal!!
I love Fort DeSoto because one is practically guaranteed to see and photograph lots of great birds. Unfortunately, the area is becoming very overcrowded with photographers. I was there one Saturday in April and there had to be 12 photographers in one area alone, photographing the reddish egret. It kind of takes away from "the moment" knowing that 12 other people are taking the almost same picture as you.
I hope Fort DeSoto doesn't become a victim of its own success...My advice is to go on a weekday and avoid the weekends.
Canon 1DX
F 600mm
ISO 800
F 5.6
1/2000
PP: Crop to about 65% FF and then added 5 % canvas to the RHS, NR to BG, levels, painted the OOF green grass blade at the bottom of the frame with blue at 40% opacity to reduce its visual impact,DE at 4% and USM to JPEG at 30%.
Comments and critiques always learned from and appreciated with thanks,
gail

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Gail,
This is such a special bird for me! just saw this specie last year and I keep on hoping to see it again soon!
Light here is superb, excellent pose and exposure. If anything, I would try to keep the 2:3 ratio even if you have to give more room all around the bird as it looks a bit tight in my opinion.

[Ian Wilson]

Looks spot on to me Gail. Great action, I like very much. Cheers, Ian

[Karl Egressy]

Great action shot with the wings up but showing the head and beak nicely, Gail. You left enough space on the right to let her hop into.

[Binu John]

Stunning shot in beautiful light, Gail! Wonderful exposure and POV. It couldn't get better than that!! Very well done!

[Loi Nguyen]

Gail, beautiful shot in good light, perfect exposure and sharpness. The water droplets are great. The comp is just a bit tough. I feel the bird is just a tad big in the frame. Loi

[christopher galeski]

Magic image Gail,great pose,nice BG,and FG,loverly lightnice detail.well done.

[Mike Poole]

Great timing in beautiful light

[vishaljadhav]

Amazing timing on this one, over all IQ is fantastic with that lovely light

[Daniel Cadieux]

Amazing pose, great light and flying water drops. I agree with Juan for the crop, but I like everything else. Desoto is indeed a popular place!

[Satish Ranadive]

Spectacular pose you have captured in beautiful lights. Lovely colors,great details, beautiful water droplets and as usual very nice composition.

Regards,
Satish.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Gail, I really like the soft early light in this, and in turn, you have managed excellent exposure on a difficult subject. Well timed to capture the pose, and against a clean BG.

[Grace Scalzo]

That's a sweet pose and I always like the little additions that you have in your images, in this case, the shape of the droplets that make a nice arc. It is tight in the frame, but I rather like it here. There's a bit of a halo above the head, an easy fix if you so desire. Nice one, Gail.

[Joe Murphy]

Caught in a great pose, light, POV, focus all spot on.

[MiroslavMaric]

Great shot. Like timing and pose. It's sharp and BG is clean. The light is a bit harsh. Well done crop. Cheers! Miro

[gail bisson]

Thank you all for your insightful critique.
Grace, I love your eagle eyes. I never noticed the line between the head and the wing. I went back to the RAW and that line/ "halo" is there in the RAW image but not quite as prominent in my finished JPEG. Not sure what it is. In my repost I deselected that halo area in DE and USM for JPEG but the halo is still there. It must be a bit of reflected backlighting from the wing through the head feathers.
For all who suggested a looser crop, I must say I do like the looser crop as well. I did have to increase the amount of added canvas on the RHS to 10%,
Gail

[Jonathan Ashton]

Love the second image I like the composition great pose and action stopping exposure.

[Bill Dix]

I've seen (and made) lots of Oystercatcher images, but this one is unique. Love the action, water drops, perfect head angle, lovely BG. Light is magic, and exposure nicely handled. Repost makes it even better. Sometimes I've seen that "halo" as a fringe around a black subject against a white bg. Something to do with the contrast, I guess, rather than PP sharpening. Not a big deal.

[Sidharth Kodikal]

Awesome action and killer light, Gail. Glad I read previous comments; Grace had the same crits that I was going to write. I still see a sharpening halo around the head. See if this works: manually run blur (20% or so) at 2-3 pixels wide on the halo.
Repost is great, but somehow seems to need a slight CCW rot?

[Iain Barker]

Fantastic image Gail. I don't think you need to worry too much about the other photographer as I'm pretty sure most wont end up with images as good as yours.

[arash_hazeghi]

Excellent dynamic pose with great exp. and details well done

[Joseph Przybyla]

Hello Gail, lovely image of the Oystercatcher. So much to like. Now on another topic... welcome to Florida in the winter. Those of us who live here anxiously wait till the end of April. Florida becomes much less crowded then. Also, they may all be photographing the same image but can they process and compose the image as you do.

[David Salem]

This is one of the birds that I really wanted to shoot on my trip to Florida. They are so striking and unique. I got some great shots of them at Fort Desoto and some nice flight shots, but I would have been jazzed to have gotten a frame like this. Lots of great action and lots of great colors. Critical focus looks like it landed right on the pupil, so sharp. Exposure looks great too as they can be a bit of a challenging. I like the first comp best,it concentrates us to the real detailed beauty of this subject, but you know me:) Killer frame Gail

[Marina Scarr]

This is the GUY rather than the gal, but I like his toenails as well! Love the running pose and droplets. The light was stunning and your low angle really helped to bring this bird alive.

[Frank Schauf]

Fantastic. Wonderful pose, colors and background.