One last stretch then I'm off - Bar-tailed Godwit

[Matthew Jones]

Bar-tailed Godwit (Limosa lapponica)
South coast, NSW Australia

Canon EOS 7D Mark II | Canon 100-400L 4.5-5.6 Mark II | Boogie board with Jobu gimbal
ISO 400, F-Stop 7.1, Shutter Speed 1/2000s | Manual, rear focus |Full frame, CCW rotation, basic work flow

When I made the drive to a favoured shorebird site earlier this month I was blown away by the number and diversity of species yet to depart on their northward migration, possibly waiting for upper atmospheric indicators - who knows? In any case I was happy to get a few sequences of Barwit behaviour in nice light and all dressed up.

[Glennie Passier]

Matt, I have been captivated by this image for a while. Beautiful bird and BG and well captured. I keep looking to see if I can find any nits to pick. I have just calibrated my monitor, so I could be very wrong. But I am seeing just a hint of colour banding in the BG. I hope I haven't shot myself in the foot!

Thank you for sharing!

[Mike Poole]

Beautiful, the bird, the POV, the light, and especially the pose have all come together very well. I too see what Glennie is referring to, but think it may be a compression issue rather than something thats been overlooked, nice work Matt.

Mike

[Raybel Robles]

Wonderful image, the color tones from the bird and background is really nice! I would sharp the face just a little tad bit more. Other than that this is great stuff!

[Bill Dix]

Sweet light and a good pose. And knowing the life history of this species, there is something special about seeing him about to embark on his epic migration. Thanks for sharing.

[Matthew Jones]

Matt, I have been captivated by this image for a while. Beautiful bird and BG and well captured. I keep looking to see if I can find any nits to pick. I have just calibrated my monitor, so I could be very wrong. But I am seeing just a hint of colour banding in the BG. I hope I haven't shot myself in the foot!

Thank you for sharing!

Thanks Glennie - You are correct the bands are there and made more obvious on the web due to I guess compression. I think it has to do with the Topaz BNR I applied during processing-absent on the original file and barely evident at high res, any thoughts/comments on how to avoid this banding in Topaz would be greatly appreciated. Its not noise banding so I can't find any solutions online - the workflows I have seen all relate to reducing colour and noise banding - will keep looking - thanks!