Black Oystercatcher

[Glen Fox]

This image was captured at Qualicum Beach on Vancouver Island, BC in May 2009, and is my first post to this forum.

Noise reduction on background, removed specular highlights on back of bird, cropped and sharpened.

Canon EOS 50D with 400mm f/5.6 + 1.4x
Aperture Priority
ISO speed: 500
shutter speed: 1/1000
aperture: f8.0
exposure bias: -1.0
metering: Partial
light source: Auto
flash: OFF
focal length: 560.0

[Aidan Briggs]

Nice overcast light, exposure, and sharpness. The blacks on the belly are blocked. If you exposed to the right, you should be able to reconvert the RAW for more detail. The BG was probably distracting, but I might try blurring it a little less, it looks a little too smooth to be realistic IMO. This image documents very clearly the pupil distortions in oystercatchers.
Looking forward to more!

[Ray Rozema]

:)Nice pose and detail in the face. I like the shells at the feet. With regards to the BG what about desaturating it some?

[Ramon M. Casares]

Agree 100% with Aidan, BG does look unnatural, probably due to the fact that the bird's edges are too soft compared to the rest of the bird. I wouldn't have blurred it as much...
Congratulaitons on the species, light and exposure.

[Harshad Barve]

lovely species with good expo
BG mentioned
TFS

[Daniel Belasco]

Welcome.
Love the eye. I know black birds are real hard to photograph. Smooth Billed Ani's are the difficult ones around here.
I agree about the bg but otherwise a nice capture while you wait to get a better one.