Red capped Plover at full speed

[Paul Randall]

Taken at Pt. Wilson west of Melbourne. Can't really tell but this guy is going 100 mph. This is a male (the females are duller.)

Canon 5D 400mm f5.6 L iso 200 5.6 1/1250 -1/3 exp. comp.

[Arthur Morris]

Killer flowers and an amazingly beautiful shorebird. I love the foreground/background flower bit. Though they eye looks relatively sharp, the bird seems to be a bit soft... If it works for you, the dark green leaf touching the belly should go.

[Arthur Morris]

ps: Forgot to ask: how much of a crop? (My guess is that you took at least some off of the left.)

[Simon Bennett]

Glorious floral setting and excellent work getting him mid stride. Sharp and well exposed too.

[Harshad Barve]

this is beautiful , full of colors , I liked it very much
Suggations by Arthur will improve it lot
TFS

[Kiran Poonacha]

Yeah as said about, killer setting this, the runing pose put it on the top, congrats..

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Good image Paul. I suggest you crop a fair bit of the bottom OOF area out all the way to the flowers. :) Cheers
Ákos

[Leo Berzins]

Nice low angle, Paul.
Wonderful setting with the purple flowers rather than just bare sand. Did you use a tripod or are you that good at hand held panning to catch one of these busy little birds so well?
Perhaps a higher ISO might have helped to freeze the action a bit more but overall a delightful image of a great bird, IMHO.

[Hendri Venter]

I also like the setting with the purple colours. The OOF foreground not a big issue for me. Congrats on a beautiful image Paul.

[Dean Ingwersen]

Really sweet image Paul, love the flowers around the bird. I tend to agree with Akos that you could lose a little of the foreground and make the image a bit stronger.

cheers Dean

[Daniel Cadieux]

I'm another in the "crop some off the FG" camp. Otherwise a very appealing image. Love the colours, low angle, pose, and extreme cuteness of the species. You could smooth out the lighter patch above the head.

[Randy Stout]

Paul:

I am in the crop some from the bottom groups as well.

Also agree about the higher ISO(Leo mentioned). With speedy guys, a better choice I think.

Very attractive image.

Randy

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

What a georgeous bird. Absolutely stunning setting too. Agree with others on higher ISO and higher shutter speed. esp. since you have 5D.

If you have as still and sharp tight shot, please post it here. Wud love to see it.

KD

[Danny Laredo]

The foreground/background flower makes this image for me.
Worth another round of sharpening. As on my screen the bird is a bit soft.

[DanWalters]

Like the color of the bird as well as the purple in the foreground and background.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

The setting and walking pose make this one for me. Another vote for a slight crop off the bottom and more sharpening of the bird. Keep them coming!

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

One more vote for a crop on bottom. Lovely species, colors and flowers around it.

[Paul Randall]

This crop is about 50% of the original (the 5D allows me to crop quite aggressively).
I actually like the OOF foreground as it helps to split the image up into horizontal thirds (1/3 OOF FG, 1/3 OOF BG and 1/3 light sand and bird in the middle.)

[Arthur Morris]

This crop is about 50% of the original (the 5D allows me to crop quite aggressively).
I actually like the OOF foreground as it helps to split the image up into horizontal thirds (1/3 OOF FG, 1/3 OOF BG and 1/3 light sand and bird in the middle.)

Thanks for the crop info. Your reasoning is faulty because the gray strip at the bottom contains nothing of interest. I would leave a small strip to ground the image. A simple scroll-crop off the bottom will reveal that the image is much more powerful as a pano.

[Paul Randall]

After a second look I realised that the image is actually split into fifths (almost equal too, probably why I want to keep that bottom grey in the picture.)
I still feel that this is the better composition, as a tighter crop may lose the sense of motion (however little) that it has. Perhaps a pano crop as you said but with twice as much room in front of the bird as there is behind.
Thanks for the constructive comments every one. This site is helping me to become a better photographer on all sorts of levels. Cheers, Paul Randall

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Thanks for the crop info. Your reasoning is faulty because the gray strip at the bottom contains nothing of interest. I would leave a small strip to ground the image. A simple scroll-crop off the bottom will reveal that the image is much more powerful as a pano.

A-ha! I am so glad when I can put my learning from you Maestro to good use as per my original crop suggestion. :)

I am sure I told you Paul that this is THE place to learn; no forum on the web compares. Period. Glad you are getting good help here on BPN mate. :)

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks for the crop info. Your reasoning is faulty because the gray strip at the bottom contains nothing of interest. I would leave a small strip to ground the image. A simple scroll-crop off the bottom will reveal that the image is much more powerful as a pano.

The other four fifths are at least interesting. The bottom fifth is boring. But your image, your call.

[Paul Randall]

I have recropped the image on my computer (not sure if I can add a second image to a thread ,so I won't) and it does look better as a tighter crop. I cut off the top fifth (grey) and the bottom fifth (grey too) and it seems to keep the slight sense of motion that I spoke of.

Yes Akos you did say that this was the place to be if you are serious about bird photography (and if you had told me I would get in depth critiques from people as knowledgable as this forums publishers and moderators I would have been on here even quicker). Cheers Paul Randall

[Arthur Morris]

Paul, You can post a new version of the image in a new pane on this thread by clicking on Go Advanced.

[Paul Randall]

[Arthur Morris]

The sharpening in the repost is a big improvement but the tight crop has totally destroyed the feel and mood of the image.

[Arthur Morris]

Here is the crop exactly as I suggested it in Pane 19 above. Plus BKGR clean-up and smoothing, between and behind the legs clean-up, bill repair, and finally sharpening applied only to the birds and the flowers. I think that that is it.

[Harshad Barve]

Rocking repost by Arthur here
TFS

[Paul Randall]

Looks like I should have listened to the overwhelming consensus on this picture from the start.

Arthur the composition of your repost has kept the mood as well as the balance that I was aiming for with my first post of this image. Not sure why it needed a bill repair (looks a bit dark and blocked up) but overall this is much more pleasing than my original composition. Thank you so much for the time you have put into this particular thread, I know you are a busy guy and schooling slow learners like myself can't be number one on your list of things to do.:o


Thanks again, Paul Randall (wingsonwire.com)

[Arthur Morris]

Hi Paul,

re:

Looks like I should have listened to the overwhelming consensus on this picture from the start.

Yeah, that was sort of my point. :)

Arthur the composition of your repost has kept the mood as well as the balance that I was aiming for with my first post of this image. Not sure why it needed a bill repair (looks a bit dark and blocked up) but overall this is much more pleasing than my original composition.

The bill was a mess. With only a small JPEG, I was forced to use the clone stamp. If I were working on the TIFF, I would have used the Patch Tool and possibly some Quick Masks and the too-black look would have been avoided.

Thank you so much for the time you have put into this particular thread, I know you are a busy guy and schooling slow learners like myself can't be number one on your list of things to do.:o

YAW. I actually enjoy it for many reasons and appreciate the thanks. Thanks for (finally!) having an open mind. If you had not liked the repost, I would have simply given up on you. But I can be on the stubborn side too. :)