Pink and Clean

[Arthur Morris]

To photograph this spoonbill bathing on the far side of the sandbar, I stood at full height behind my tripod to minimize the sand in the foreground.

Canon 800mm f/5.6L IS lens with the 1.4X II TC and the EOS-1D MIII on the Gitzo 3530 LS with the Mongoose M3.5. ISO 400. Evaluative metering at +1/3 stop: 1/1600 sec. at f/8 in Manual mode. I used cenrtal sensor One-Shot AF to miniimize the risk of having AI Servo AF focus on the water droplets rather than the bird.

Don't be shy. All comments welcome. I am hear to learn too.

ps: If you are or will be in FLA soon give James Shadle a call and get your butt on the Hooptie Deux. It will be spectacular for the next 5-6 weeks.

[Randy Stout]

Artie:

Fun image with great technical control. Sharp, with wonderful water action. When I first thought of the composition, I thought it a bit centered, but I suspect you didn't want to crop from either side and lose the great splashing.

I might consider losing the sand completely, it doesn't add much for me. But, as we all know, I am crop challenged, so perhaps not.

The bill is outstanding, really shows off here.

Randy

[Daniel Cadieux]

With the bird looking straight-on the centered crop is the way to go. At first I prefered the lower sandbar cropped out...but then I saw how the cool repeating horizontal blue/gray bars are coming closer progressively from BG to FG - that lower snad bar helps with that effect. Talk about intense water splashing!

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Artie,
Welcome back! You know my love of the crop tool.....so for me the sand has to go.....and not because of space issues......but because the sand color. clashes with the rest of the scene for me....or conversly.....expand the blue of the water more??
I do like the central placement as it shows the behaviour and splash really well. What I don't think people realize is the fact that you have both eyes very visible with the head on angle.........and that is not an easy task! I often times find the splash of the bathing obscures the eyes quite a bit......so to get the clen face.....is a huge bonus. I'd imagine you followed your "put the hammer down" theory (which I always do in these cases).....and sort the results later. Nice that you got the bounce off the water too on the wing underside. Let's see what others chime in on the crop or FG. Very nicely captured.

[Grace Scalzo]

What a fun image, made me smile. I do vote against the sand stripe, to my eye it's unnatural looking and doesn't draw me toward the action. Love the head on look and of course all the splashing.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks all for your comments and suggestions. When I viewed the post, I thought "There is too much sand." The repost is as far as I care to go

And yes Roman, I pretty much held the hammer down when the bird was thrashing about; this is something I do only on rare occasion. When will you be on the Hooptie Deux? Congrats on your NANPA Expressions images.

ps: Currently have 25 bathing keepers. Need Linda Robbins to help me cull those.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Artie,
Better for me.....hope others add to the debate. 25 keepers......we should all have that problem!

12th on the Hooptie (sent you an e-mail)....and thanks for the NANPA mention.....it was a nice honor.

[Dave Mills]

Hi Artie, Technically the image is beautifully handled. Compositionally the centering works well,lighting is soft and even with alot of interesting action. I really don't see a need to have the blurry brown line at the bottom. IMO the water is an adequate base.

[Judy Lynn Malloch]

I really like the repost Artie. IMO the little touch of sandbar adds another dimension of interest and with out it it is just water and more water. Still very lovely either way. Wonderfully exposed and the straight on view is very nice and works well with it being centered. The action and the waterdroplets put it over the top. Really like this one .

[Ramon M. Casares]

Lovely powerfull shot, great detail and colors as well as centered comp that IMO work perfectly here, repost looks way better to me too. Congratulations!

[Ian McHenry]

Stunning image Artie.
I too prefer the 2nd one.
Has there been a slight increase in contrast or is that an optical illusion?
Cheers: Ian Mc

[Daniel Cadieux]

Yes, repost is better but I'm glad you kept some of that band at bottom for the same reason I stated before :-)

[James Shadle]

I prefer in this order.
1) No sand, very in your face.
2) The original post
3) The repost

All marketable images.

[Raymond Barlow]

excellent image Artie, action very well captured., I would clone out the sand., the light angle is really sweet., gosh I miss Florida this time of year!

[Arthur Morris]

Stunning image Artie. I too prefer the 2nd one. Has there been a slight increase in contrast or is that an optical illusion? Cheers: Ian Mc

Thanks again to all for their comments. I simply cropped the JPEG and re-saved it so that may have caused a small increase in contrast.

As for the band of sand in the repost, I tried a scrolling crop and the image just does not work for my brain or otherwise. At least Daniel understands me :) ;) :)