Oystercatcher

[Reynir Skarsgard]

Taken handheld by the shore, the sun from behind and to the right.
There were two oystercatchers rooting around for food there, quite skittish and it took a while to get close with a good angle on them. They would fly off every now and then before returning to the same area.
This shot was cropped a bit, highlights adjusted slightly and minor sharpening applied. There are a few more from this series on my Flickr page, http://www.flickr.com/photos/reynirsk/

Canon EOS 7D
Canon EF400mm f/5.6L USM
1/5000 sec
f/8.0
800

[Doug Robertson]

Very nice capture! Very sharp, I like the composition. Good job.

[Julie Kenward]

Reynir, I downloaded the image, already to give you a talking to about blowing out the whites and blocking the blacks...but histograms don't lie - you're within the guidelines on both counts! That said, the head is almost...ALMOST...without detail in the black areas and the whites on that upper wing area is almost...ALMOST...too hot to look at. If this were mine, I'd try to bring back a little detail in the face and tone down that area of hot white on the wing.

Also, cropwise and composition look good but you want to watch your wing angles...the best two positions are fully up or fully down and with the way the body is turned here, it feels a little lopsided because we get to see next to no wing on the back because it was midway.

If this were my image, I'd also get rid of the white areas of the water along the sides of the frame - they really pull the eye away and out of the image.

[John Chardine]

The blacks and whites are close but I think this is a stunning image all the same. I love the eye contact, wing position and sharpness. If the image started life as RAW then some Fill light will open up the blacks and the Recovery should tone down the whites. It is a very tough challenge for any sensor in such harsh light. There's some noise in the blue BG that could be easily removed. Well done on this one!

[Reynir Skarsgard]

Thanks for your comments, I appreciate them.

I was shooting JPEG so there were limits to how much I could recover in the blacks, the whites were a little better. I actually hadn't really noticed the white parts in the water all that much, now that it's pointed out they do distract the eye somewhat.
I did a quick re-edit, toned down the wing areas a bit more and tried to boost details in the head, also removed the white areas in the water. Take a look.

[Kerry Perkins]

Reynir, nice job on the re-post. I see much more detail in both blacks and whites. This was a very nice capture and you dealt with the exposure issues nicely in the re-do. In the strong sunlight it is easy to lose details even when the whites are within comfortable numbers. Hope to see more from you!

[Reynir Skarsgard]

Thanks guys.

I liked this shot a lot and your suggestions made it even better. And don't worry Kerry, there's more to come

[Cody Covey]

repost looks a lot better although I would run some NR on the background