European Golden Plover

[gail bisson]

I am still working on Day 1 images from Iceland.
This image is 98% FF and I do not have any more room on the bottom unfortunately. I took a sliver off LHS.
Shot from the car. Dark clouds.
These birds truly are golden and I would love to see one in full breeding plumage. This guy had a chick nearby and you can see some wear and tear in his feathers.
Canon 1 DX
600mm 1.4 x
ISO 2000 SS 1/320 F 5.6
PP in LR and CS5.
Had to do a major adjustment in temperature and tint to get rid of the magenta cast, cloned out a small grass in RLC, NR to BG, levels, Artie's 50/50 detail extractor and tonal contrast recipe at 8% opacity on bird only and USM to JPEG.
Comments and critiques always learned from and appreciated with thanks,
Gail

[William Dickson]

Very nice Gail, the colours on the bird look real good on my screen(iMac 5K). Fantastic pose and great looking HA. Love the BG colours. The only thing I would change, is add some below.

Well done

Will

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Gail, lovely low perspective, and even better shooting from a car. I like the feather detail and overall colours on this fellow, and great IQ for your high ISO. Nice and sharp, and that's a sweet BG.

With your skills I'm sure you could add some canvas below - bit by bit.

[Bill Dix]

Hi Gail. These are indeed beautiful birds, and you caught him with a lovely head turn. They do get very defensive with a chick nearby, and are fearless in trying to distract you. I'm sure there was no time to take off the TC, so you did well to frame him as you did; I would have cut off his feet in the excitement.

[Tim Foltz]

Gail, Beautiful bird, nice colors , BG, HA and details.
I hope you don't mind I added some more moss on the bottom, I think it would be a quick fix for you.

-Tim

[William Dickson]

Much more pleasing to the eye. Nice work Tim.

Will

[gail bisson]

A big thank you Tim! I was in a "purist" frame of mind today but when I see your repost it makes me want to be "unpure" Stu B. also sent me a redo by PM and both of your images look great so I will repost,
Gail!

[Tim Foltz]

A big thank you Tim! I was in a "purist" frame of mind today but when I see your repost it makes me want to be "unpure" Stu B. also sent me a redo by PM and both of your images look great so I will repost,
Gail!

Hi Gail I to get caught up in wanting to keep things as they were/are but as others point out if it's a sweet image a little sugar will just make it sweeter

-Tim

[Geoffrey Montagu]

Hi Gail. These are strikingly beautiful birds, and you've captured this one very nicely posed on the moss covered rock. Excellent POV, pleasing head turn and BG.

Geoffrey




http://http://500px.com/geoffreymontagu

[Daniel Cadieux]

I suppose pointing your lens down would have made adding canvas above much easier, but in the heat of the moment we don't always think "digital". I love the IQ and perfect head angle.

[gail bisson]

Here is my repost. I had another frame where the plover did not have a pleasing HA but I did have more perch within that frame so I brought both frames into CS5, duplicated,expanded and feathered the extra bit of perch and copied and pasted the extra visible perch from frame #1 to frame #2 (the OP)
It does look better! Thanks guys!

[Tomasz Zawadzki]

The repost looks much better with more space at the bottom. I think when we are too close to the subject it's a good idea to take few more frames that contain more of the bottom etc.
Just in case the best frame is too tight.

[Isaac Grant]

Beautiful shot of a bird I have yet to see. We have had a couple over the years go by on the east coast of NA in the last few years. Missed one by 10 minutes once!!! Love the details, colors and background. Repost with more on the bottom is even improves an already great image. I love your shots and am not surprised that you had 2 of the top 100 in Audubon. Congrats.

[Mike Poole]

Nice work Gail, especially with the better balanced RP

Mike