Juvenile Virginia Rail taking a stroll.

[Daniel Cadieux]

While slowly walking on a boardwalk I heard a Virginia Rail calling. Out came the mp3 player, and within 20 seconds a juvenile rail flew behind me and onto the boardwalk. This one hasn't quite finished attaining its adult plumage. It was kind enough to give me the time to slowly turn around and lay flat onto the ground. It paced left and right a few times before retreating back into the marsh where it came from - but not before I hit the shutter button a few times :-) I like the view of the large feet and small hind toe. The large black patch is the boardwalk becoming a foot path entering a dark forested area.

Canon 40D + 100-400L @340mm, aperture priority, evaluative metering, 1/125s., f/7.1, ISO 640, +0.7 EC, natural light, handheld.

[Brian Barcelos]

Nice capture Daniel, my luck as soon as I'd even think of turning around he would have taken off. Very sharp and nice head angle and glad you got a back view of him. BG is a little distracting going from almost white to black but still a very good image. By the way you forgot to put up your techs.

Brian

[Randy Stout]

Daniel:

This one works very well for me. The techs are good, pose interesting, and the piece of debris appears to be what he is looking at. Your very low shooting angle minimizes the impact of the boardwalk.

Perhaps a bit more blur at the transition of light to dark, but very nice as is.

Randy

[Daniel Cadieux]

By the way you forgot to put up your techs.
Brian

Whoa! Now that's a first for me...thanks for the heads up, info now added:)

[Harshad Barve]

nice low angle , walking pose and details
agreed with Randy about transition of light to dark
overall a fine image
TFS

[Subharghya]

Superb low angle and beautiful rim light makes me like this image but the Bg is spoiling this image a bit .. I wish it didn't change so suddenly also I feel you can apply some more noise reduction in the BG

[Ryan Lambert]

The low angle really makes this a super image, I quite like the dark bg... Good detail

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Dan, your low angle has eliminated most of the boardwalk which Im sure wouldnt have fitted into this lovely pose of the juvie rail. Pin sharp, and love the detail on him. I find the lower half of the BG too bright, but not too sure how best to make it work better. There again, being the pro you are, Im sure you have come up with the best result.

[Kiran Poonacha]

Beautiful one Daniel, loved the angle and the duo tone Bg works well, you could slightly reduce the brightness on the lower half. loved the pose very much.. congrats....

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Agree about distracting B&W tonalities of BG but I think Kiran's idea is good to ease off the lightness on the bottom half. Bird is exceptionally sharp and well framed. thanks for sharing! :)

[Krijn Trimbos]

Love almost everything about this shot Daniel. The only thing that I find distracting is the harsh/sudden transition from the white part of the BG to the really dark part, maybe in this situation it would have been better from a little higher angle of shooting??? The rest looks spot on, love the low angle, the headturn, the leg position and light! Congrats

[Bryan Hix]

Very sharp image Daniel. I guess for me, the dark and light meeting right in the middle of the bird isn't my preference, but obviously you didn't have much of a choice for setup. Otherwise, cool bird.

[Ilija Dukovski]

Uh, I love this one Daniel, the bird pose walking is great, with the OK HA and the curly plant leaf on the right looks nice too.
I love the head on the dark BG I only wish the dark BG was all the way down to the feet fingers or so.
Very nice shot of a rail.

[David Fletcher]

The low angle really makes this a super image, I quite like the dark bg... Good detail

Ditto that!. Don't mind the transition. Great comp.