Greater Yellowlegs.

[Daniel Cadieux]

This past week I had a rare evening outing for bird photography (I'm usually a morning person). I headed out to my favorite shorebird fall migration patch and spent almost two hours lying prone in the mud and shallow water surrounded by a flock of yellowlegs, sandpipers, and plovers. Too much fun!

Canon 7D + 500mm f/4 II + 1.4TC, manual exposure, evaluative metering, 1/320s., f/5.6, ISO 800, natural light, handheld, almost FF (cropped after a slight .5 degree rotation), removed a single oof water droplet between the bill and foot that looked out of place.

[Randy Stout]

Daniel:

Great POV, shallow DOF, soft bg, raised foot, all good. Sharp and well exposed.

Only possible improvement would have been better eye contact, but it works well as posted, as it shows he is on the prowl for something, perhaps breakfast!.

Cheers

Randy

[Ian Wilson]

I like the surreal background with just a hint to 'ground' the bird. Excellent comp and techs as usual. Regards, Ian.

[Allen Sparks]

Hi Daniel,
Excellent perspective and I really like the "searching" pose. Very nice BG too. Well done.
Allen

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Great behavioural image and I love the surreal environment and the raised foot.
TFS

[Ágúst Svavar]

Beautiful sharp and clean image. I really like the exposure and the background.

[John Robinson]

Yes a delightful surreal image. You don't very oftyen get water like that over here !!
JohnR

[Geoff Newhouse]

Great image Daniel. I love the raised leg, walking pose and great details on the bird. What I really like even more than the subject is the ethereal water and background. Very nice.

For those shooters who own a 7D2, I wanted to pass on a shooting tip that has worked very well for me for shorebirds like this and even waterfowl...try the Zone mode instead of the expansion or single point modes. The first Zone mode with a block of 12 points (3x4) works amazing and always gets the head in focus as it aims for the closest thing to focus on. As long as there is no foreground leaves or reeds overlapping the subject the zone mode is producing a much higher hit rate for me than my usual expansion modes. This shot just reminded me of that shooting mode that I've been using lately with success.

[Arthur Morris]

A lovely and elegant high key image. Having the bird a bit farther back in the frame would work for me.... a

[keith mitchell]

Daniel it all looks clean and sharp with plenty of detail ,birds Yellow legs stand out well, like this one a lot.

Keith.

[Bill Dix]

Beautiful soft light, pastel fg/bg, and classic Yellowlegs pose. Love it.