These from Monday at my local estuary in NZ. They are Bar-tailed Godwits that will soon be taking off on a 10,000 km flight direct to Asia. The only longer flight tracked of any bird is the same population on their way back from Alaska in September! The light was lovely and soft, bright but with some high cloud, and reflecting back from the sand and water. Taken about 11 am so the sun was otherwise high in the sky. The bird on the left is a male showing some breeding plumage (possibly as much as he will get). The other is probably a female (they are larger and much less red).
Specs:
Canon 40D, 500 f4 + 1.4 TC, ISO200, f5.6, 1/1600
Cropped ~30%, only PP was a little sharpening.
I'm not worried about the out of focus sticks, as I like a shot to tell the story about the habitat. What do you think? Does it work with both birds in the frame like this?
Hi - Looks a tad under exposed - histogram would seem to confirm that. I would set a black and white point via a levels adjustment layer in Photoshop. Probably should have been some + Compensation in camera.
Make sure you have your over exposure blinkies turned on - and utilise your histogram on the lCD of the camera - you want to push it as far right as possible without blowing out any whites.
The second bird doesn't really add anything to this - IMHO.
Looks sharp and like the low shooting angle.
Hi Phil Great suggestion by Lance Histogram is your best friend Image looks under as presented and if you brighten as suggested will look better at the expense of noise !!!
Composition wise would try for one bird then go for multiples. You can get fairly close by crawling !!!
Hi Phil, Agree with above comments and add that for the two subjects to work well there should be some interaction shown. Even if their just looking at each other. If this were mine I would crop out the rt hand bird and concentrate on the left...
Phil - Thanks for posting this. Some good advice given above, but all of that notwithstanding, this image helps tell the story of these birds' truly remarkable achievement, unmatched by any other avian migration. Especially the belly stoked with fuel for the journey.
Bar-tailed Godwits about to leave
