Short-billed Dowitcher

[Dorian Anderson]

Still looking for my perfect upstroke shot of this bird, but here's a decent downstroke in the meantime.
Face isn't perfectly sharp, but I'll take it.

Canon 600mm f/4 IS II on EOS 5D Mark IV
1/3200 at f/5.6, ISO 1600
Processed in LR CC w/o trickery

Off to Texas for 5 days of bird guiding, but I might be able to fit in a bit of shooting depending on how
everything breaks.

I still gotta get a few more Colombia images up here......

[John Mack]

Nice frame in nice light. Like that blue water water background. Face isn't perfectly sharp and i will take it. That is my motto.

[Isaac Grant]

Very nice flight pose with full down stroke and a great head angle. Agree the head is not perfect but it looks pretty good. What bothers me more are the 3 dark wave lines in the background and especially the one that intersects the head. Still very nice overall.

[arash_hazeghi]

Beautiful shot Dorain, love the light and the blue saturated water. Sharpest focus fell on the far wing which is a bummer but a typical issue with these kind of shots and not much you could do about it. I selected the head and shoulder area in PS CC using the lasso tool then I feathered a touch and applied smart sharpen to equalize the sharpness between head, near wing and the rest of the bird. not perfect but makes it a bit better


TFS keep up the good work

[David Seymour]

Hi Dorian, I love the lighting in this shot, with the warm low-angle (edge of day?) light striking the bird, but falling much less on the background which is very cool and blue. For me the resulting strong color temperature contrast is what really lifts this image, great to look at. The dark lines in the background are often something you have to contend with when there are cresting waves in the background, but for me the other qualities of the image are enough to carry it. Nice one,


Cheers, David

[Tobie Schalkwyk]

Lovely shot, nicely exposing the wing feather patterns Dorian. I like Arash's edit.

[Arthur Morris]

Wicked and difficult. Arash's excellent repost brought it up a notch.

with love, artie

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Dorian, as perfect a down stroke as you could wish for, and these flight poses certainly show up more colour and feather detail than raised wings. I do like the colour of the bird ( brown ) against the blue of the water.

[Joseph Przybyla]

Nice work, Dorian. I think Ari's edit as said brings the image up a notch. Such a small and fast bird to capture in flight. Thank you for sharing.

[Bill Dix]

Beautiful flight pose of this speeding bird. Lovely light. Arash's RP helps the head.

[annmpacheco]

Hi Dorian, another skilled flight shot. I do like the detail Arash was able to attain in the repost, very nice. Thank you for your generous explanation (banking skimmer shot) of your AF preferences on the 5Dmark IV, which escalated into an avalanche of responses and information.

[William Dickson]

Very well done, great capture with lovely flight pose and detail on the bird.

Will

[David Salem]

Another great shorebird image Dorian. You sure are having fun in the afternoons. It's a good physical workout also.
I do the extra selective sharpening on the head on a lot of images that are just on the edge of being razor-sharp on the head and it makes a big difference as Arash's re-post looks great. Well done, again