This image was created on 7 September 2021 at Nickerson Beach. While seated on dry sand at the top of a berm, I used the hand held Sony FE 600mm f/4 GM OSS lens with the Sony FE 1.4x Teleconverter(at 840mm) and The One, the Sony Alpha 1 Mirrorless digital camera. ISO 1250. Exposure determined via Zebras with ISO on the Thumb Wheel: RawDigger showed that the exposure was nearly perfect, about 1/6 stop too dark. 1/2000 sec. at f/7.1 (stopped down 2/3 stop) in Manual mode. AWB at 7:41am on sunny morning.
Tracking: Zone/AF-C with Bird-Eye/Face Detection performed perfectlyby nailing the bird’s eye.
I was sitting in the same spot that I created yesterday’s featured image, the screaming Ring-billed Gull. Two juvenile Sanderlings kept walking up to the top of the berm to rest. Then they would head down to the surf to forage a bit more. After that happened several times, I scootched about four yards closer to their resting spot and lo and behold, the came right back up. I made lots of very sharp portraits, but the birds were both angling slightly toward me. I made this image as one of the young birds reacted to being buzzed by a skimmer — note the flying sand. It flew back down to the beach, but hand holding at 840, I wound up clipping the attempted action shots.
As for the image, don't be shy; all comments are welcome and appreciated.
with love, artie
BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.
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I really like the kicked up sand, it adds a lot of movement to this. I see what Brian is saying about more contrast then normal but I think it's just close being too much, nothing really over the edge for me.
Artie, excellent pose and eye contact. The foot flip of the sand is super!
I like the layered sand effect.
That said, just a touch more contrasty than I'm used to from you.
A bit of sharpening halo above the head and looks like your canvas add in lower right corner messed up?
Thanks Sumps Scores. Was not added canvas ... I moved the seaweed ... I repaired that. I reduced the contrast and added a bit of detail to the whites on the neck.
with love, artie
BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.
BIRDS AS ART Online Store: we will not sell you junk. 35 years of long lens experience. Please e-mail with gear questions.
Check out the new SONY e-Guide and videos that I did with Patrick Sparkman here. Ten percent discount for BPN members,