I had a superb encounter with this beautiful shorebird Saturday morning. When I heard the snipe calling in the nearby reeds I put on the audio and BANG, within a few seconds it came running out in the open towards where I was. It strutted around for a few minutes allowing for great opportunities, even once I turned the audio off. At one point I repositioned myself, and by doing so I inadvertantly got this snipe in alert mode with its' tail raised staright up like a chicken, I will share an image or two of that too. Thank goodness last year's reeds are dry, flattened by the winter snow, and thick...I was able to lie down flat on that "carpet" without absorbing too much water from the marsh I normally prefer more room in front of where the subject is looking towards (regardless of body angle) but I felt too lazy to add canvas at right to recrop. I still like this comp regardless...
Canon 7D + 100-400L @360mm, manual exposure, evaluative metering, 1/640s., f/6.3, ISO 800 (settings histogram checked off the reeds), natural light, handheld, full-frame. A few very bright blades toned down via burn tool.
IQ, bird, low perspective, and light all superb. Have never seen anything like this with this mud-sucking species. I'd have gone with the bird a bit to the left or a lot to the right in my original capture.... Can't wait to see one with that tail raised. All in all, the grade is A-.
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I like the tonality of the bird and the bkgd. The foreground sharp reeds contrast nicely with the blurred out bkgd. With this HA I would like to see the bird more to the left in the frame. Great techs.
Cool story and great looking bird. I find it hard to critique your photos because i am trying to get to that level. I like the habitat with the included complementary background. Really like the catch light here. Unique pose and sharp. Very nice.
Beautiful capture, Dan. Love the soft colors, shooting angle, and setting. Personally I feel the bird too centered on the frame; the head angle makes this a tricky composition dilemma. Looking forward to the rest of the captures.
Hi Dan, the snipe is slightly off centre, so Im fine with your comp. Good inquisitive pose, sharp, and just the complimentary colours of both the snipe and surrounding BG.
Not to beat a dead horse but with so many folks liking the composition I need to state that in my opinion that this would be a far stronger image with the bird placed on the left side of the frame. Do see my very positive comments on the image above. You might ask, "What the heck does he know?"
BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.
BIRDS AS ART Online Store: we will not sell you junk. 35 years of long lens experience. Please e-mail with gear questions.
Check out the new SONY e-Guide and videos that I did with Patrick Sparkman here. Ten percent discount for BPN members,
BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.
BIRDS AS ART Online Store: we will not sell you junk. 35 years of long lens experience. Please e-mail with gear questions.
Check out the new SONY e-Guide and videos that I did with Patrick Sparkman here. Ten percent discount for BPN members,
Excellent image Daniel...everything is perfect except composition as pointed out by Artie...as you do not have any space on right and you will need to add lot of canvas to move the bird on left, I would try and see if vertical crop with bird on left will work well by adding slight to top.
Daniel, good job with the calls. certainly worked very well. not an easy bird to capture. You really do a great job of bringing the birds within the photographic range. Excellent details and low angle.