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ctfchallenge | all galleries >> Challenge 58 - Vertical >> Challenge 58 - Eligible > Spoonbill *
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25-JUN-2004 Mary Anne

Spoonbill *

Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge, FLORIDA

This is a greatly cropped portion of a photo of a mass of waterfowl at a wildlife refuge, so I'm afraid the quality is not the best, even after playing around with sharpening. Maybe someday I'll spring for a telephoto lens...or another CF card so I don't have to reduce file size when on extended trips.

Canon PowerShot G3
1/250s f/8.0 at 28.8mm with Flash full exif

other sizes: small medium original auto
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ctfchallenge03-Jul-2004 15:52
Thank you for the compliment, Alexeig, but I have to admit that the patience was in the post-processing rather than in the picture-taking. Since I have only 4x optical zoom, I couldn't get as close to the birds as I would have liked, so I just kept snapping as I walked slowly closer and around at different angles, trying not to scare the birds off and hoping I'd find something worthwhile once I downloaded the photos to the computer. There were hundreds--maybe thousands--of birds in the area making a great commotion as they searched for food. Truly an awesome sight. This picture is just one small part of a much larger photo.

Mary Anne
alexeig02-Jul-2004 22:51
Great capture which rewards a great patience
ctfchallenge02-Jul-2004 02:46
Actually, I wanted to clone out the feeding bird but was afraid I'd just botch the whole thing up. I left the other spots there (one's a reflection of another bird, which I cropped out because it was definitely distracting) in an attempt to take the eye away from all the noise that resulted from zooming in so much. Thank you for your comments.

Mary Anne
Jim B (MSP)02-Jul-2004 02:09
A really nice capture. If it were me, I'd clone out some of the distracting spots in the upper half of the photo.

Jim B
Nugar01-Jul-2004 22:31
Great capture!
ctfchallenge01-Jul-2004 21:42
I had the same thought. Thank you for your comment.

Mary Anne
aam1234 01-Jul-2004 18:02
Very nice. Reminds you of traditional Chinese drawings.