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Thread: Great Knot in flight

  1. #1
    Phil Battley
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    Default Great Knot in flight

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    Hi there - recently back from a trip to the northern Yellow Sea in China, where I spent a week with a grad student of mine working on Bar-tailed Godwits on migration. We spent a lot of time out on the tidal flats with some tens of thousands of birds moving in and out with the tide, including some big flocks of Great Knots (shown here). This is a Russian-breeding species that migrates through Asia to Australia and SE Asia, and is probably the closest relative of the Surfbird that many of you will be more familiar with. I had my 500 mm lens with me, and spent many awkward hours with it hanging around my neck as I used the scope, periodically changing them over while trying not to drop either into the mud. I was pretty sore after the first day, but improved thereafter.

    Specs:
    Canon 7D + 500 mm
    ISO250, F6.3, 1/1300 sec, exposure +1/3 stop
    Handheld
    Unsharp mask + a tiny brightness tweak in levels. Would you do more?
    A fairly big crop - c. 20% of frame.

    Cheers, Phil

  2. #2
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    I like the bird a lot, the HA and eye contact are great,
    nice wing/flight pose too, good plumage detail too.
    I think the sky needs bit NR, color NR at least (could be easily
    done on the entire image in ACR). The bill has a bit of shine that I
    would try to correct. Last, I would crop more off the top
    and bit off the bottom to avoid square frame.
    I'd love to see this bird:)
    Last edited by Ilija Dukovski; 05-17-2010 at 10:50 PM.

  3. #3
    Phil Battley
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    Thanks Ilija,

    Immediately after posting the image I thought how blindingly reflective the bill is...

    Phil

  4. #4
    Super Moderator arash_hazeghi's Avatar
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    nice flight shot, good details, you did well given the light angle, in addition to removing the reflections on the bill I would brighten the eye a bit. TFS
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  5. #5
    Publisher Arthur Morris's Avatar
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    Great bird. How come you never sent one to Jamaica Bay in the 1980s??? I agree with most of the stuff above but am not a fan of the near wing position; the primaries are too pancake-y for me... Some selective sharpening of the face would be in order. Lastly, you could lighten the shaded belly and breast a bit.
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  6. #6
    Phil Battley
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    Thanks gents, now I need to fit in the time to read Digital Basics properly...

    Phil

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