Avocets in love

Gallery: AvianPosted April 13, 2012207 views7 comments

This was taken April 8, 2012 at San Joaquin Wildlife Reserve in Irvine, CA. We planned to move to the other ponds, but noticed unusual behavior from these two Avocets. We got marvelous picts of them mating, and immediately after, captured this action as the two departed the bedroom together.
Nikon D300 Nikkor 200-400 lens 1.4TC 550mm f/8 1/800 ISO320
Manual exposure white balance auto small crop Wimberley on tripod

Comments

7 comments

Comment posted by SandyRichardsBrown on April 13, 2012 at 11:48 AM

The stilts and Avocets have wonderful courtship and mating dances and displays.
You got a nice angle here as they intertwine necks after mating. Great water colours too.
This is quite bright and you've lost most detail in the whites and blacks. Birds with both colours are very difficult to expose well. I'm guessing this was pretty much a high-noon image, and the light was very bright and flat. This can be a nearly impossible situation, as it's very hard not to blow whites. Try darkening the whole image here, and then also starightening it so the water lines are level.
Do you use your histogram? It's essential thing with digital cameras, especially in bright conditions. Set your LED display to automatically show you both a thumbnail and histogram after every shot. Then you have the feedback you need to set your next exposures. Then, in post-processing, you can fine-tune further with a program like Viveza.
Sending you some info on histograms.

Looking forward to more of the mating images!

Sandy

Registered on November 24, 2003, 3937 Posts, 12909 Comments

Comment posted by Keith Bauer on April 13, 2012 at 12:52 PM

Hi Patrick: The interaction you captured is just great. Nice pose and timing. Technically there are a couple of issues. The image looks like it needs a CCW rotation. The exposure looks like it was a tough one. The whites in the breasts look to be blown with little or no detail. I don't know if you can recover this from your RAW file. Certainly worth a try.

Registered on November 20, 2003, 458 Posts, 4836 Comments

Comment posted by Ron Bielefeld on April 13, 2012 at 4:03 PM

I agree about the brightness. I also would reduce the saturation if this were mine.

Registered on December 6, 2008, 360 Posts, 7132 Comments

Comment posted by David Haynes on April 13, 2012 at 5:31 PM

Patrick,
Really great angle of this display. Agree with others about the whites being blown and the image needing a little bit of CCW rotation. I also think a little bit of de-saturation like Ron has suggested would improve this image quite a bit. Very tricky lighting. Just a great look at the front of these two birds kissing after.........! LOL. See you Patrick. Are you available to shoot this weekend? I could meet you at San Joaquin in the morning and we could do some work with the avocets and do a little bit of exposure work. Let me know and happy to help. Maybe Skip and Eric can come as well. That would be fun!

Registered on February 20, 2010, 110 Posts, 1511 Comments

Comment posted by Philip Hodgkins on April 13, 2012 at 8:04 PM

I agree with everything that Sandy, Keith and Ron have said. Play with this. A lot. There may be a good picture hiding there.

Registered on July 24, 2006, 2741 Posts, 12349 Comments

Comment posted by Jim DeWitt on April 14, 2012 at 3:11 AM

Great capture, but I agree with Sandy's assessment.

Registered on August 28, 2006, 1240 Posts, 8506 Comments

Comment posted by Rick Turner on June 12, 2012 at 12:59 PM

Sweet action and I agree with brightness and too much contrast.

Registered on February 18, 2012, 534 Posts, 2755 Comments