Juvenile Black-Bellied Plover in Golden Light

Hi All,

This is another file from 2013. If I have the type of plover wrong, please correct me.

Shot it on the coast of Texas in probably the best light I’ve ever found a willing subject in. In post, I cropped slightly, adjusted the exposure with curves, resized, sharpened the bird, and reduced noise on the BG. The curves adjustment actually reduced the yellows in the file. All C&C welcome.

Techs:
D7000
550mm (using my old 200-400 f/4 + 1.4x tc), handheld lying on the beach
1/800
f/5.6
ISO 800

If you would like your image to be eligible for a feature on the NPN Instagram (@NaturePhotoNet), add the tag ‘ig’ and leave your Instagram username below.

@feelingruby

1 Like

Very nice, Lyle. I wouldn’t try to identify it. Plovers are too difficult unless you see a lot of them and I don’t. The time of year you took it might help people come up with an ID. Great low angle, and I do love that low light.

2 Likes

I am really bad at ID so I won’t even try (especially in this non-breeding plumage). I think this is really nice although I might back-off the red channel just a touch. There’s nothing wrong with as the color looks completely natural, but I think it starts to steal the show from the bird which you have captured perfectly here.

1 Like

Lovely light, nice low angle, good detail, slightly open bill. Well done. My Merlin Bird ID app agrees with you.

1 Like

Thanks, @Adhika_Lie. The yellow/red saturation in photos like this is always tough for me to handle. I used to try and tone it way down so that the white feathers were truly white. But now I view the light as the subject just as much as the bird is. Still working through my editing approach, but always appreciate your thoughts.

Very pleasing frame. Nice low angle, pleasing comp.

I’m with @Adhika_Lie on the color. The warmth seems to overpower the scene. I did a quick color balance adjustment. See if this still works for you. I feel it is stronger.

1 Like

Thanks, @Keith_Bauer. I like where you landed, although I’m not sure if I’d tame the colors quite that much in the end. I am curious what your steps were?

Here’s what I did:

  1. Opened in PS
  2. Duplicated the background Layer
  3. Applied Filter / Blur / Average
  4. Created A Curves Adjustment layer as the top layer.
  5. Selected a gray eyedropper and clicked on the layer that is the Blur / Average Layer
  6. Delete the Blur Average Layer
    Now you have a “color corrected” image with the background and a curve.
    I reduced the opacity of the curves adjustment layer just a bit as it pushed the color balance too far.

This technique is a great one to remove color casts.

1 Like

I would also be excited to take images and lifelike this. But I agree with both Adhika and Keith with respect to the saturation. Otherwise a very nice image. Well composed and superb depth of field.

1 Like

That’s an incredible trick, @Keith_Bauer. Thanks for sharing. I’ll have to give this one a little time before deciding where to land. Always hard to balance the memory of the scene versus what the final product should look like.

Most have been said, I do like the bird and image, and Keiths’ rework is to my liking :slight_smile: … Cheers, Hans