Sanderling

[Julie Brown]

My first experience trying to shoot these fast little guys. I was pretty far away, too. This image is soft, and I'm thinking it is due to the aperture, despite the fast SS.:(

Canon 40D, 300mm f4L IS, ISO 160, f4.5 @ 1/2000sec, 0 EV, pattern metering, manual mode, HH

PP: Lightroom 2.6
very large crop
exposure adjustment: set black and white points
enhanced clarity and vibrance
tweaked tone curve
sharpening and NR
post-crop vignette

[Kerry Perkins]

Hi Julie,
Nice work handling the difficult exposure situation on this one! Not sure what robbed you of the sharpness, but suspect it was a combination of subject motion, camera motion, and cropping. Your lens is capable of very sharp images wide open, so I don't think it was the aperture. A little boost in saturation might help the bird stand out a bit more. Big challenge capturing the little ones handheld!

[Lance Peters]

Hi Julie - agree with Kerry - I cant make out were the point of focus is/was.
How much of a crop is this???

[Thanaboon Jearkjirm]

Nice exposure as mentioned, love the pose and sand around the bird. Wish for a better looking shadow. Cropping do hurt sharpness and sometimes downsizing for web can contribute to softness too.

[Jackie Schuknecht]

What so you use to shapen Julie. Did the initial file look sharp?? Not all pics come out of the camera sharp. Wonder where your focus point was too.

[Julie Brown]

Thank you Kerry, Lance, Thanaboon, and Jackie for the helpful comments. This is a HUGE crop, as are most of my bird images (much room for improvement here). And I don't know where the focus point is either! I use Lightroom for PP, but I don't have a sharpening plug-in yet. I'm not sure how much sharpening to do in LR and I have just started to experiment with the unsharp mask/adjust sharpening tool in PS Elements. I only had 2 usable images of this bird (the rest went into the trash). I will post the other image (shot at f8.0@1/750sec). I applied more sharpening overall, as well as some selective sharpening of the bird with the adjustment brush. Is this image any better than the first? Resized out of PSE at 197kb-the first one I think was 127kb.

[Thanaboon Jearkjirm]

To me your second image does look sharper than the first. Less room on the right and more room on the left would be nice.

[Julie Brown]

Thanaboon, it is sharper-but not too sharp? I'm not sure how much to give it. Have I been too cautious? :confused:

I re-cropped the second image. Is this better?

[Declan Troy]

Julie, You can check to see the focus points if you view your image using DPP (Digital Photo Professional) the free software that came from Canon. Right-click on an image and enable AF Point

[Julie Brown]

Thanks Declan, I will try that out.:)

[Thanaboon Jearkjirm]

It doesn't look over sharpen to me Julie. There is a small halo on the bottom beak and leg though, but you can use mask and brush it away in Photoshop.

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Julie Lots of good suggestions in the post !!!

For these little guys the first thing you need is to be flat on the sand !! Best perspective and do acquire a special look, they don't seem to look good when looked from above. Also you can approach them easier since they don't spook and will usually come right up to you !!! It is very possible to obtain a full frame with your 300 lens !!!

[Mark Young]

Great subject to photograph. I can vouch for Alfreds above suggestion on lying down for shorebirds. The angle is so much nicer, and the birds are far more likely to either approach you or let you approach them the lower down to the ground you are.

[Myer Bornstein]

the second picture is much better. old clothes down on the sand or mud to get good images of the peeps

[Julie Brown]

Thank you Thanaboon, Alfred, Mark, and Myer for the additional comments.

I will definitely hit the sand (or mud) next time I get a chance to shoot shorebirds. I am not afraid to get dirty!:D