Semipalmated Sandpiper

[Mike Milicia]

EOS-1D Mk III, 500mm f/4 + 1.4xII, 1/800, f/5.6, ISO 400
About 75% of Full Frame

Photographed a couple of weeks ago on Plum Island in MA.

Looking forward to your comments and critiques!

[Jim Fenton]

Hi Mike...

I really enjoy the plant matter which the bird was using although I can imagine that others will say it looks cluttered?

I might have gone for a little less subject isolation so that the shoulders on back toward the tail would have been more in focus but you certainly could have gone either way.

While I'm betting that the whites of the breast aren't blown, they do look hot on my end. Was this a warm lighting situation?

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Histogram is fine on the white end Jim! :) Blacks are clipped, but not by much. I wouldn't notice naturally. Wonderful habitat shot Mike. The weed is perfect and if it were on sand, it would look like a cliche IMHO. This is way different from the perfect clinical image with the smooth clean BGs everyone seems to be going crazy for.

[Jim Fenton]

Not saying the histo wasn't good...just noting (likely due to the warm light perhaps) that they look a tad hot / bright on my end....that's all :)

[Arthur Morris]

Whites look perfect here. Love the fact that the feet are up on the vegetation and are clearly visible. Lovely light and COMP.

[Tony Whitehead]

Lovely colours, Mike. I really like the warm tones of the bird and seaweed in contrast to the smooth, cool BG.

[Randy Stout]

Mike:

Very nice. I would consider knocking out some of the specular reflections of the seaweed in front and to the left and call it a day. I do see what Jim was commenting on re: whites, and there are areas of the breast that are right on the edge on my calibrated monitor. The histogram doesn't tell the entire story.

Randy

[Harshad Barve]

lovely image with nice sharpness ,expo and compo
TFS

[Mike Milicia]

While I'm betting that the whites of the breast aren't blown, they do look hot on my end. Was this a warm lighting situation?

This was long enough ago that I don't remember the exact conditions but metadata indicates it was captured about an hour after sunrise. I also missed the fact that Manual Flash was used (probably at -2) so it was likely overcast or cloudy.

I would consider knocking out some of the specular reflections of the seaweed

I started down that path and it started looking dull and unnatural so left them all.

Regarding the whites, the Red channel dominates in the white areas and in the AdobeRGB master file, Red is in the 230's for the vast majority of the white area, peaking at 245 in a few pixels right below the bill. Isn't that about what you want in bright white areas with detail? However, when such an image is converted to sRGB for web display, the Red channel in most of the white area goes into the 240's maxing out at 252 in a few of the brightest pixels. This could easily appear a bit hot. If anyone knows of a way to better control the translation of what I think of as properly adjusted whites in AdobeRGB into sRGB, I'd love to hear it. As far as I know, this is just an unavoidable consequence of the fact that sRGB is a smaller color space than AdobeRGB, but I'm hoping someone that understands color management and color spaces better than me can shed some light on this issue.