This capture was made last weekend on the Carmel River State Beach, Monterey Co. CA. I was able to do a belly crawl to within 10 feet or so. PP'ed in ACR and CS3, selectively sharpened with USM and Nik Sharpener Pro. C&C welcome.
Camera Model: NIKON D300, handheld with shoulder stock
Shutter speed: 1/500 sec
Aperture: 8
Exposure mode: Manual
Flash: Off
Metering mode: Multi-segment
ISO: 400
Lens: VR 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6D
Focal length: 400mm
Focal length: 600mm (in 35mm film)
VR Image Stabilization: On
AF mode: AF-C
Very cute, and good job on the belly-crawl. Personally I would crop away about half the OOF FG, as I find it too large. A bit of NR on the BG would be great too.
I like the angle, mood, sharpness and BG. I agree regarding cropping some off the bottom. Did you add canvas at the bottom or clean below the bird? Is this bird nesting or resting?
Thanks all for the comments and suggestions. The bird is resting and yes, I QM'ed a little bit in the OOF FG area. Here's a repost with suggested inprovements. Thanks again for the help, I always seem to miss things!!:p
Hi Dan, The repost looks great. The low angle of capture and bird partially obstructed by the sand makes this an interesting image in my opinion. Well Done!
I don't think you "missed" anything! I like both versions! I do tend to lean a bit more to the second in preference, but if I had never seen it, I would have been plenty happy with the first!
I am also impressed with the fact that this composition really works even with the focal point of the image, (...the birds face and eye) pretty much dead center! I haven't seen very many compositions or subjects that pull that off!!
Very nice and gentle image, I love the bird the detail and sharpness.
Also nicely placed in the sand, bit different than usual. The dark blue color
of BG is great too. Like it a lot!
Snowy Plover
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