The last of the yellowlegs in Canada are heading out. This guy was around yesterday, and was actually chasing fish in the river, grabbing small perch and carp from the water as they passed him. Most of the time, they managed to wriggle free and swim off, but he did succeed in dispatching one and swallowing it. I've never seen either yellowlegs species fish before, but for those of you who don't believe me, I have pictures (albeit bad ones) to prove it! Absent any quality fishing shots, I did manage a few of the bird resting in the river, where the water was moving rather quickly due to a strong squall line coming through the night before and dumping copious rain all over the area (along with a tornado further west in Gatineau). Of all the shots I took in this pose, I liked this one the best because I think the lines in the background from the swirling water echo the shape of the bird's body as he's resting there. It's also one of the few shots where the wind is giving the bird a bit of a bad hair day.
Bringing the image into Photoshop, the water was almost electric blue, so I warmed up the entire image with NIK Viveza and further added a bit of yellow and red, then decreased the overall blue saturation. The bird had to be lightened by about 1/3 stop, with the white belly masked off to keep the whites under 250, and the background about 1/2 stop. A little noise reduction, and voilą. My overall aim was to keep the f stop as open as possible, as with any other time I shoot in the river, since the natural movement of the water tends to create all sorts of background lines and blobs that are much better soft than sharp.
1/2700 @ f/7.1, ISO 400
5D mkIV, 500mm f/4 IS, 1.4x TC III on the tripod
DPP/PS
Mid-river repose
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