Eastern Whip-poor-will

[Anthony Barsotti]

Here's one from a few months back of a rare visitor here in Baltimore. This Eastern Whip-poor-will was found by a birder buddy of mine and I was lucky enough to make it to the local park where it was discovered in time before it departed. Shot with my Canon 1DX Mark II and 600m f/4 IS II with the 2x Extender III. 1200mm f/8 1/80sec ISO 800. Processed in ACR and Photoshop with some curves adjustments and some cloning of a few twigs in the background. Hope you like it, thanks for looking.

[dankearl]

I usually would never like a sleeping bird but I like this..I love the colors, and the detail on the bird.
Maybe a bit tighter crop.
Really nice.

[Daniel Cadieux]

I love the autumn feel. Beautiful BG. Sleeping bird looks peaceful. A bit steep, nit much you could do about that. I like the FG foliage, but I do wish it was lower to fully clear the subject's breast area (getting about one foot higher may have worked, but obviouisly likely not doable unless a step-stool was handily available!). Still, not a species we see often, nice find!

[John Mack]

Really like this one with the out of focus foreground and background. The overall color here is great.

[Aditya Sridhar]

Great colors and detail. I *love* the OOF foreground and I think it adds a lot of depth to the image. I agree with Daniel's critique re the shooting angle, but the FG goes some way in alleviating that IMO. Great work!

[Anthony Barsotti]

Thanks for the feedback everyone! Definitely wanted a bit higher of an angle to get rid of that foreground blur in front of the bird’s breast but that was with my tripod fully extended to 70”. I tried backing up too but to fully get rid of it I had to move so far back that I wasn’t putting enough pixels on the bird. Always that one branch that gets in the way lol