This was a first for me, photographically speaking. My only previous looks at these guys have been brief glimpses on the dark forest floor, or on spring nights when they perform their amazing aerial dances. This one was hanging out for quite some time in close proximity to the boardwalk at Magee Marsh, foraging in the wet forest litter and seemingly oblivious of the several dozen onlookers on the boardwalk. Most of the time he was obscured by oof vegetation, but as he walked around probing for earthworms he eventually came to a spot that was almost unobstructed; and I was able to find a viewing window between the legs of the onlookers. According to my bird books, he is supposedly one of our most common "shorebirds", but almost never seen because of his concealed habitat, camouflage, and secretive behavior. It would have been nice to see his entire bill, but it was almost always buried in the ground. Some PP work on oof vegetation, and Linear Burn on the background (I may have overdone the latter, but wanted the bird to pop). Levels, Tonal Contrast and sharpening on the bird.
D7200, 500f4 + 1.4 TC, ISO 3200, 1/640s @ f/6.3 manual. Full Frame.
Nice looking bird Bill.
Similar to ours - apart from the chestnut on the flanks. We call the display"rhoding".
A group of birds most difficult to picture, so you did really well here. You managed to get the right bits in focus at that aperture too !!
Cheers
John
Great bird, one that I've accidentally flushed on a couple of occasions but never had the opportunity to photograph. Good details and colours on the bird. The feeding behaviour is well depicted. I do find the forest floor has a bit of a "haze" to it compared to the worked on background. A bit of masking issues around the subject too. When selecting the contour you should feather the selection by a few pixels rather than keeping it hard edged. Sounds like it was a tough spot to photograph, but save for a few processing tweaks you did OK.
Daniel: I was shooting through patches of light green vegetation on either side of the frame creating an OOF green haze. I put the Green saturation at 0, and painted the area with Linear Burn. It didn't entirely clear up the haze, although it's less distracting than it was originally. Any suggestions? I always feather the selection, usually at 0.7%. I can see a few spots, at the bird's rump and under the throat, where I was a bit careless with the selection.
I've brushed on a bit of Tonal Contrast, along with some desaturation and Linear Burn, to address the hazy areas. I think it helped (although as I look at the Preview Pane, I think I missed a bit on the far right).
Cool looking elusive bird this is and you did a good job capturing it. I'm sure they're never sitting out in the open so this might be as clear as a shot if you can get. Nice details and colors and the repost looks much better. Well done
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Wow, nice job getting close to this skittish species! I have seen lots, but it is always dark, or they are obscured by their surroundings. Nice detail and colors, behavior capture, feeding, that eye is cool, I think I can see your reflection in it!
American Woodcock
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