Black Bellied plover

[Don Lacy]

Made this image of a Black Bellied Plover at Ft Desoto last year, I went with the unusual placement in the frame hoping to convey a sense of loneliness or isolation.

40D, 500 f/4 IS + 1.4TC, 1/1600 at f/7.1, Aperture Priority, Evaluative Metered, ISO 400, RAW, Tripod, Cropped

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the angle, light and BG and would put the bird to the left in the frame. It would be nice if we could see the eye.

[Dave Blinder]

Hi Don, I like the comp, and angle.

The edges on the bird look too sharp, the whites appear hot (check for blinkies in ACR), and I'd imagine this is a pretty heavy crop. Fine detail is mostly missing. BB Plovers can be very approachable birds, a great technique is to slowly crawl up the sand towards them, will lead to many frame fillers.

If shot in AV mode, what was the Exposure Compensation here? It should come down a couple of notches.

- Dave

[Don Lacy]

the whites appear hot (check for blinkies in ACR)

+
Hi Dave I pulled the image back up in PS and I can not find a single area of white that has a higher value then 245 which is far from clipping

and I'd imagine this is a pretty heavy crop

Image as presented represents about 70% of original so no not a heavy crop

If shot in AV mode, what was the Exposure Compensation here? It should come down a couple of notches.

I do not remember the comp used in AV but the RAW file has plenty of head room the histogram is not touching the edge.
Dave feel free to pull the file into PS and make adjustments I am on a older I Mac and wondering if the screen is past its day and would like to see your version next to mine on my screen
Thanks, Don

[Dave Blinder]

Hi Don - Here's my take, right or wrong, let me know what you think.

I've gone -24% on the clarity slider of ACR to restore soft edges to the feathers.

I went into Shadows/Highlights adjustment to bring the whites down considerably. Also had to desaturate the yellows as my adjustments made the colors too unnatural.

[Stu Bowie]

Lovely lazy pose Don, and I agree to move the bird to the left. Although I cant detect any blown whites in your OP, I do like Dave's repost. Great BG BTW.

[Don Lacy]

Dave thanks for taking the time to make the adjustments. your version looks a bit to dark on my screen and the blues in the BG do not look natural. I lower the white values some more in this version and I did some selective sharpening on the feathers to bring out more detail.

[Arthur Morris]

Don, There are still a smattering of hot white pixels in the re-post. Best to start over, recover them, and make sure that you do not bring them back during the creation of the JPEG...

Putting the bird in the llc would work for me (and for Axel). And as I teach, say, and write often: 99.9% of successful images of preening birds feature a visible eye and the head perfectly square to the back of the camera... This image needs both :)