African Black oyster catcher

[Dave Barnes]

The African black oystercatcher is in danger of extinction, its way of life increasingly threatened by man. It is the only oyster catcher which breeds in Africa.
The oyster catcher is rarer than the Southern right whale and there are no more than 5 000 birds in the world

Canon 1D mk3
Canon 500 f4 + 1.4 TC
ISO 400
App f5.6
SS 1/2500
Exp comp +0.3

[David Gancarz]

I really like the graphics arts quality of your composition. The blacks, reds, and blues are simple and very effective in showing off the birds. Excellent exposure also. I might apply some additional sharpening to the extent you don't get halos on the high-contrast edges.

[Chris Kotze]

Great pose and detail, well captured and super exposure

[Stu Bowie]

Both in perfect focus, and like the angle in this Dave. Well timed to capture the front OC "leaping" across the rock.

[Phil Ertel]

I like that you capture this image with one bird posing and the other taking flight. The exposure looks spot on with good colors. Nice!!!

[Tony Whitehead]

Beautifully done, Dave. Always a thrill to see these on the rocks. May be an option to crop some of the blue from the top to raise the birds in the image a little.

[Arthur Morris]

Wonderully designed image with amazing sharpness and d-o-f. With all due respect to Phil, "...with good colors," the posted image has a huge blue cast that is easily seen in the rocks.

The repost was created with about an 85% Average Blur color balance correction.

[Dave Barnes]

Thanks to all for looking and for comments.
Thanks Arthur, I think you are right it looks better.

[David Gancarz]

Complete disclosure: my knowledge of color correction is extremely limited. Nonetheless, I guess I just thought the OP showed the oystercatchers on some sort of volcanic rocks with color correctly shown.

Arthur: What is it about the original image that leads to your observation about blue color cast? What is the color reference in the image?

[Arthur Morris]

Complete disclosure: my knowledge of color correction is extremely limited. Nonetheless, I guess I just thought the OP showed the oystercatchers on some sort of volcanic rocks with color correctly shown.

Arthur: What is it about the original image that leads to your observation about blue color cast? What is the color reference in the image?

As soon as I saw the image, it shouted blue cast. The blacks looked blue to my (experienced) eye. To confirm that I duplicated the image and then did Filter/Blur/Average. Then I looked at the RGB #s and the BLUE # was way higher than the others. Then I balanced it with the Average Blur Color Balance Trick that is detailed in Digital Basics.