Just visiting (black-bellied plover)

[wendell westfall]

D70s 70-200VR+2X@400 1/800 f5/6 ISO1000 0EV handheld

This lone plover was standing among many feeding dowitchers this morning. It was an overcast day. The image is cropped by half and is sharpened w/ some NR applied. Very little other tweaking was done. What do you think?

Wendell

[Harold Davis]

good looking bird, wendell. a lower capture angle might have been a little better, but this aint bad either!

did you use the noise reduction on the bird too? it looks really smooth and not much detail.

[Gus Cobos]

Hi Wendell,
I like the composition and capture. Your head angle and eye contact is good. The capture angle is fine with me...:D Agree with the Doctor reference the details in the feathers being a tad soft...possibly due to noise reduction...looking forward to your next one...:cool:

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Nice shot, I like the cloudy day feel (what was your WB setting)?

Usually for me when I HH and crop by 50% the results are soft. The BG is light, were you going for a "high-key" look?

[Alfred Forns]

Great suggestions !!!

I think the biggest improvement for this image is being flat on the ground !!! Changes everything and bg would have been sweet !!! Love those plovers !!!

[wendell westfall]

Yes, I did use NR on the entire image . . . I now see that I should not have done that.

WB Temp setting is 5550. No, I was not aiming for high-key.

Unfortunately, could not get lower for this exposure.

This is my first black-bellied plover . . . had to research for ID.

[Lance Peters]

Hi Wendell - agree with the aove techs - only the lower angle could have improved. I pretty much never use NR on the entire image - would rather see some noise than a loss of detail.
Good show :)

[Ron Boisvert]

Hi Wendell, I have to agree with the tech notes offerred above. The first thing that struck me was the slight softness in the bird. Perhaps the cropping by half contributed to it. It looks to me like you might be able to pull more sharpness out of this image, though. This is a great first shot of the plover; great HA, eye contact, nice crop. Nicely captured. I look forward to your next post.

[Bob Miller]

Hi Wendall...Love the icy blue color of the water. The bird is soft but still not a bad look...kind of painterly

[Aidan Briggs]

Hey Wendell, good advice from above. On overcast days at the beach, you will generally want a K value of around 6000. The reason why this image is a bit blueish is due to the lower K value (5500) A higher value will warm things up a bit.

[wendell westfall]

Thanks for that input, Aidan . . . I'll warm it up . . .