I am finding it tricky to get real nice images of large groups of Dunlin. So I am curious about this one. I was following a small group of low flying Dunlin and knew they were passing over the small group feeding. I left the horizon line in for depth and context. This is a color photo.
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Is the group too bunched up? Would it be better with focus on group feeding with passing birds blurred? Do you prefer focus on foreground birds?
Technical Details
Is this a composite: No
R5, 500mm + 1.4 Ext., f/5.6, 1/2000, ISO 3200. Leveled and then cropped from height to 55%.
Hi David. To me, the flying Dunlins get lost in the feeding ones in this image. If there were some way of making them pop from the others other than just focus it might work, but I think you needed to have a lower point of view to make this one really work so you could get separation between the two groups. That would also take care of the issue of the foreground birds being out of focus since with this scene it would be very difficult to tell which were the foreground birds if they were on different levels.
I also have difficulty getting large groups of shorebirds to look reasonable. Well this looks nice graphically, it is hard to make the compositional components tell one story rather than several. Dublin’s certainly fly in regular patterns and that has more compositional appeals to me. Sometimes in the wind, they were all facing the same direction which shows order.
I liked the overall composition on first look, but agree with Dennis - I only found the flying birds after close scrutiny, so, yes if you could have got a good bit lower … But I really like your photojounalistic style.
On one hand I like the panoramic view as it really sets the scene for this large flock and the overall effect is pretty neat. On the other hand I could see a tight crop, in the area where the greatest number of flying dunlin are, to better show them against those feeding. I haven’t seen flocks of dunlin on the west coast, it’s mainly large flocks of sanderlings and I’m always after a shot like this with varying success, so nice capture here.
That is the ticket for sure. Get lower. And get vertical separation.
Allen I would be surprised there would not be Dunlin in the south Washington/Portland area. Which I think is about where you live. They seems to like big tidal flats, soft silty/fine sand tidal flats. We also get Sanderling here. They seem to like cleaner sand that you would find on west coast beaches or beaches where people go in summer time.
Different food I guess.
I agree, the big problem with Boundary Bay and nearby is that the walkway is a dike: getting low on the water is frustratingly difficult as the foreshore is a) off limits and b) marshy, muddy and wet!
Hey AP good to see you here. And thanks for the comment. It would be great to get low and be able to get back up! But getting low is the ticket. Looking forward to seeing some of your photos.
