This picture was taken four days ago at Corona del Mar, CA, on a fairly dark morning. Two questions: 1) Is the surf cutting across at the bird "unacceptable" -- the little guy flew away before I could get a "better" angle? 2) Is it a Western Sandpiper?
Wendell - an excellent pose - nice head angle and I really like the raised foot.
Personally, I don't mind the surf line - I think it gives nice context. I'll leave the ID to someone else - shorebirds are not my forte...
On my monitor the highlights (notably on the flank) look pretty hot and the overall image looks very bright and contrasty - I might consider some RAW reprocessing / a bit of a reverse-S curve (or at least drop the highlight end) to try and bring in some highlight detail.
Yes to a nice pose and yes to very contrasty with some hot whites on the shoulder. Much better would to have had the surf line an inch before the bird's feet..... .
The bird is a Black-bellied Plover, probably in worn first winter plumage.
Were you plus or minus that 2/3 EV????
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Good points from Artie and Jeff. I was also struck by the brightness of the image and the rather warmish whites in areas.
In the repost, I did a selection and ran a multiply layer at 80%. It would be better on the raw, but I think it tames a few of the concerns. The image is still too contrasty, but you can address that during the conversion from raw if you reprocess it.
Cheers
Randy
Last edited by Randy Stout; 03-13-2011 at 05:20 PM.
Well done Randy. Wendell, you would make your life easier if you made it a habit of pointing your shadow at the bird.
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Appreciate your responses.
My LR3 histogram shows only two very tiny areas of clipping -- one of the eye reflect and one on top of the surf halfway from the bird to the right edge. I used Recovery at 11 on an NEF file right out of the camera. I do like your repost better than my image, however, Randy. The EV was plus 2/3, Artie, and thanks for the ID.
YAW. Note: + compensation with Nikon cameras when the sun is shining is a bad idea :)
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Western Sandpiper
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