This image if from early morning yesterday at Ft. Desoto County Park in Pinellas County, Florida. I am thinking this is a Sanderling, if not please help. I am weak on identifying shore birds, I need to get Artie's book on these birds. The only one of his books I do not have. Comments and critique welcomed and appreciated. Thank you for viewing.
Nikon D500
Nikon 80-400mm F/4.5-5.6 VRII AF-S ED, camera and lens supported by a monopod
1/3200 F/5.6 Highlight Weighted Metering EV 0 ISO 250 Auto 1 WB, image captured at 280mm
Post processed in Lightroom Classic, Photoshop CC 2020 and Neat Image for noise reduction when needed
Cropped for composition and presentation
Last edited by Joseph Przybyla; 08-28-2020 at 02:26 PM.
Joe Przybyla
"Sometimes I do get to places just as God is ready to have somebody click the shutter"... Ansel Adams
I really like the bird, sharpness , pose, angle, the water color (silver and blue).
I would consider reducing the amount of beach in the foreground. You might need to do a bit of a balancing crop from the top after cropping up from the bottom, but I find the beach foreground just a bit heavy
lovely Joe, nice siphoning feeding behavior, POV, exposure. I do agree with the suggested reduction of FG that Randy has given you, WDYT? I'd be tempted to crop out the sand and avoid the prominent line of water/sand... solid lil piper!
I am really loving the EXP and details on the bird. The water and it's colors are killer for me. About half way on the dry sand would be nice, but I'd hate to lose any of the water. How do you get low angles on a monopod? TFS
Hi David, thank you for viewing and commenting. Regarding you question about the monopod... the one I use is a carbon fiber (strong but light weight) by Oben that has five sections. I either sit on the ground with the monopod lowered so it is comfortable to look through the viewfinder or I spread my legs wide lowering myself to the viewfinder. If I am following a bird as the Reddish Egret in my previous post I just spread my legs wide so I can move quickly to follow the bird. If I see shore birds working along the surf I find a area of clean beach and sit, letting the birds come to me. In this instance I could have captured the image at 400mm but I chose 280mm because it provided the illusion less of a downward angle. I also have a Wimberly MonoGimbal head on the monopod which allows all the movements of a tripod gimbal head. The monopod supports the weight of the camera and lens allowing me to hold the focus point exactly where I want it. Thanks again, David.
Joe Przybyla
"Sometimes I do get to places just as God is ready to have somebody click the shutter"... Ansel Adams
Hey Randy and Ann (I missed your images while you were away), thank you for viewing and commenting. I agree that the amount of beach showing was a bit much. Here is a edit without the beach in a 16x9 crop using Content-Aware Fill in Photoshop to fill in with the receding water.
P.S. Studying the image I think this works much better. By moving the bird forward in the frame in this crop the background appears to extend into infinity.
Last edited by Joseph Przybyla; 08-29-2020 at 07:37 AM.
Joe Przybyla
"Sometimes I do get to places just as God is ready to have somebody click the shutter"... Ansel Adams