Flying Sanderling?

[Arthur Morris]

This running adult Sanderling is molting to basic (or winter) plumage. It was photographed this morning at Nickerson Beach as I was sitting in the ocean behind my lowered tripod with the Canon 800mm f/5.6L IS lens, the 1.4X III TC, and the EOS-1D Mark IV. ISO 800. Evaluative metering +1/3 stop: 1/1250 sec. at f/10 set manually. Rear focus AI Servo AF.

Don't be shy; all comments welcome.

[Jay Gould]

Lovely image; hard to top this beautiful bird racing along the beach. I like the way the water is is turbulent at the rear foot.

Artie, it seems to me that "recently" you have added Rear Focus to your information. Are you referring to using the button on the back of the camera instead of the shutter to focus, or something different? Thanks,

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

OOh I love how it looks like he's running on air with those swift feet. I wish for more room on the botom Art although I love the water coming from the rear foot and the amazing detail and superb light. I like th pan crop too.

[Arthur Morris]

OOh I love how it looks like he's running on air with those swift feet. I wish for more room on the botom Art although I love the water coming from the rear foot and the amazing detail and superb light. I like th pan crop too.

I too wish for more room at the bottom! :) I did the best with what I had.

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

I too wish for more room at the bottom! :) I did the best with what I had.

You did good. I still do love it :)

[Dave Mills]

Art, Easy fix if you so choose using the content aware tool...

[Arthur Morris]

Well done. A brief description would be appreciated.

[Dave Mills]

Art, I use the crop tool and select the whole image adding more space to the bottom. This will create a gap that you select. Go to Content Aware and apply it. This is a tricky tool and does not work on everything.
In this case the CA filled in the water but left me with some minor cleanup that took less than a minute to blend in. This is a tool(like many others) you have to play with to see what it can do and it's limitations...

[Arthur Morris]

Art, I use the crop tool and select the whole image adding more space to the bottom. This will create a gap that you select. Go to Content Aware and apply it. This is a tricky tool and does not work on everything.
In this case the CA filled in the water but left me with some minor cleanup that took less than a minute to blend in. This is a tool(like many others) you have to play with to see what it can do and it's limitations...

Thank you sir. I have had some disasters with CA but will give it a try on the original.

[Don Lacy]

The extra space at the bottom does the trick, love the mid air pose and the subject really pops off the grey BG.

[Bill Dix]

Fabulous action shot, and Dave's work on the bottom really puts it over the top. Super lighting.

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

Art, I use the crop tool and select the whole image adding more space to the bottom. This will create a gap that you select. Go to Content Aware and apply it. This is a tricky tool and does not work on everything.
In this case the CA filled in the water but left me with some minor cleanup that took less than a minute to blend in. This is a tool(like many others) you have to play with to see what it can do and it's limitations...

Thanks for sharing that with us. I have not tried that tool and think I must. I am curious, did you clone the two small water ripples lower left corner or did the content aware find that for you as I don't see the pattern anywhere in the image.

[Dave Mills]

Hi Cheryl, actually those lines did pop up after I used the tool and I decided to leave them in. This tool has to be experimented with to see where it's effective. I find when taking out an object where there is a similar pattern or color around the selection it works best. At times I have been very surprised what it will do thinking it wouldn't work. Very often there will be minor cleanup after it's use.

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

Hi Cheryl, actually those lines did pop up after I used the tool and I decided to leave them in. This tool has to be experimented with to see where it's effective. I find when taking out an object where there is a similar pattern or color around the selection it works best. At times I have been very surprised what it will do thinking it wouldn't work. Very often there will be minor cleanup after it's use.

That's great, I actually really like those lines and they look so natural. Thanks again

[Craig Brelsford]

Lively shot, Artie; I also find interesting your hugely long focal length with that 800 mm lens of yours. I don't know what you mean by "disasters" with Content Aware. It's easy enough just to press the Undo button. Dave Mills echoes my experience. I too am often pleasantly surprised by Content Aware. In this case, Artie's shot was crying out for more room at the bottom, and Content Aware generously supplied it.

[Ofer Levy]

Great pose, excellent sharpness and detail. I like the repost with the added space at the bottom. I view this on an iPad and it looks like some of the white is blown. Using manual exposure could have avoided that.

[Geir Jensen]

This images was beautiful

[Arthur Morris]

Lively shot, Artie; I also find interesting your hugely long focal length with that 800 mm lens of yours. I don't know what you mean by "disasters" with Content Aware. It's easy enough just to press the Undo button. Dave Mills echoes my experience. I too am often pleasantly surprised by Content Aware. In this case, Artie's shot was crying out for more room at the bottom, and Content Aware generously supplied it.

I am very good at pressing Control Z. By a disaster I mean that when you try to use CA for a seemingly simple job it sometimes messes up very badly grabbing pixels from far away and messing up both the colors and patterns... I do not think that CA could be viewed as being generous.... When used by someone knowledgeable I am sure that it is a useful tool. I guess my big problem was the bogus CA hype that proceeded the release of CS-5.

[Arthur Morris]

Ofer,

re:

I view this on an iPad and it looks like some of the white is blown.

You are correct. Some of the whites in the JPEG are blown. Likely from converting the TIFF to a JPEG but possibly from changing the color space to sRBG....

Using manual exposure could have avoided that.

A little respect please; that might be true for someone who does not know how to use a variety of modes. I find it curious that you would put me in that group. Below is a screen capture showing a perfect histogram for the TIFF file. I simply do not have time to check for blinkies after creating a JPEG....

[Arthur Morris]

Lovely image; hard to top this beautiful bird racing along the beach. I like the way the water is is turbulent at the rear foot. Artie, it seems to me that "recently" you have added Rear Focus to your information. Are you referring to using the button on the back of the camera instead of the shutter to focus, or something different? Thanks,

Thanks. I almost missed your Q. You are correct. About a year ago I went to rear focus--no AF with the shutter button--100% of the time. I switch the Af-On and Star buttons as detailed in our camera User's Guides.