marbled godwit feeding

[greg cowle]

Marbled godwit about to swallow at Elkhorn Slough in March this year. I like the drops about to fall from each mandible.
Canon 1DXII with 400/2.8II+1.4III on tripod.
f8, 1/3200, ISO 800, handheld, processed in Lightroom.
Greg

[Isaac Grant]

Marbled are so much more common on the west coast. We get so few in the east. Love these birds. The open beak and water droplets are a great touch. I like it feeding in the water as well. Good eye contact but head angle not ideal. When the birds are walking at you I think it helps to get the head a little more parallel to the back of the camera. Light angle was not perfect which caused too harsh of a shadow below. Colors are too muted which I guess is from the sun being high in the sky. I would try and add more depth to the colors by maybe increasing the vibrance. Or doing a curves adjustment. Or going into selective color and working on bring out more of those beautiful cinnamon tones of this bird. Also looks like it could use a little counter clockwise rotation.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Cool species that's for sure. I like the feeding action, and the water drops. I wonder if you can lift the darks on the prey item, as well as the unfortunate shaded leg without introducing too much noise? The body angle would have been better with the tail end swung over more towards us. Yes to CCW rotation - an easy quick-fix with the ruler tool and then Image Rotation > Arbitrary. Very sharp as posted, and I really like the blue water's surface texture.

[Glenn Pure]

Pretty nice, Greg. Living in landlocked part of Australia, I don't see a lot of birds like this, or not very often anyway. As already noted, the light here is fairly harsh, although well handled in your processing. Detail looks excellent and I like the pose you've captured along with the water drop. Thanks for sharing.

[greg cowle]

Thanks all for the very useful comments. I saw for some reason I had the wrong camera profile, I think the color is more vibrant now, I have also done as much as I could to reasonably brighten the prey and back leg, and some rotation. I understand perfectly what Isaac and Dan are saying about the angle... I actually have shots of the same bird with a better angle, but I like the shots which capture some action, so feeding always gets me over a still pose, that is just me! We are spoiled for these in California, at Elkhorn Slough there are usually flocks. The catch at the Slough is it is almost impossible to get a place where you can get close with a low angle. The little beach I took this from is now roped off. I really go there to watch the sea otters.
Hope the repost is going in the right direction.
Greg