Crouching Least Sandpiper

[Isaac Grant]

I had a fantastic experience last night at Wolfe's Pond Park in Staten Island. We had clear skies and low humidity and just perfect light. There are lots of biting flies at the beach there so I brought my Kwik Camo blind with me and laid under it on the shoreline. Really I did it to protect me from the flies but it worked great for the birds as well. There were a few shorebirds that spent most of the next hour or so too close to me to focus on and I got to spend a long time observing them eat and interact. They didn't even seem to mind when I waived my arms to get some flies out of my face. So unlike most situations, I was too close for pictures much of the time but managed to get some shots that were keepers. There were 2 adult Least Sandpipers that were often within 2 or 3 feet of me. At one point an Osprey flew over and got this ones attention. It quickly crouched down to blend into the colorful rocks. Only did this for about a second and I was not able to get the whole bird in the frame. This shot is just about full frame. I only cropped a small amount off of the left and top for composition.

Canon 7d2 and Canon 500 f4 ii + 1.4xiii. Tripod mounted with legs fully extended. ISO 640, F6.3, SS 1/1250

Converted in DPP. Shot was taken very shortly before sunset and the frame was super saturated. I used Color Temperature and set to 4600. Highlights -2. No other adjustments. In PS adjusted for hue/saturation, highlights and shadows, cropped, sharpened and applied noise reduction to background. Also lowered the contrast of the background just a tiny bit.

[Adhika Lie]

Very nice pose, Isaac. And the IQ is top notch; not that I expect less from you. I do wish to see the bird in its entirety and I was hoping for the foreground OOF rocks to go away or at least not touching the body. Good reflex on your part to catch such a sudden action!

[Richard Flack]

Super image quality Isaac, and great to capture this behaviour. Brilliant to see such fine detail on the sandpiper. Pity you were too close to get the whole bird in the frame. All the best. Rich

[Arthur Morris]

Sharp with excellent detail but, it would have been much better with the TC in your pocket. And the o-o-f rock the merges with the bird is a big distraction. If you have a bird like this that is too big in the frame think stitched pano. Just make sure that you are in Manual mode.

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[Isaac Grant]

Agree with all the has been said. Eventually I did take the teleconverter off but was not really prepared to do so. Did not have the lens caps with me and I was laying down on a wet exposed flat. Nowhere really to put the **** thing. I played with cloning out the rock that is touching the bird but didn't like the results. Plus the bird was so close that if I started to take the converter off I am pretty sure it would have flown. So I figured I am better off getting something then nothing at all. Hard in those situations to know what to do. Honestly have no clue how to do a stitched pano. Sounds like a perfect idea though. I just liked the light, the image quality and the behavior that showed what they do when trying to camouflage themselves. This area is really hard to shoot in but has so much potential. It has this beautiful purplish sand and all of these colorful rocks. Really makes for nice environment and a change from the flat sand shots I am usually after. But to get the birds in between them and not have a rock in the way is so hard.

[Geoff Newhouse]

Nice and sharp, detailed image in pretty nice light. I agree with the previous critiques about the OOF rocks in the foreground. I would have liked the whole bird also but that doesn't bother me all that much.

TFS
Geoff

[Arthur Morris]

Honestly have no clue how to do a stitched pano. Sounds like a perfect idea though.

Manual mode. NOT AWB. Set the focus on the bird's eye with either rear focus or One Shot AF (and keep the shutter button half-pressed). After you make an image of the front end of the bird swing the camera to photograph the back half of the bird... For best results the tripod platform should be perfectly level. That's the hard part. Assembling the two images in PS is the easy part. Simply go File > Automate > Photomerge and grab a cup of coffee.

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[Isaac Grant]

Will have to try that. Thanks so much. Now let's hope I am blessed with the problem of shorebirds that are too close to fit in frame.

[Arthur Morris]

YAW Issac. It works well with sleeping bears to. And you wind up with a lot more pixels than you would have had if you simply removed the TC.

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