Here’s a shot I got of a male CA quail taking a dust bath that suggests “drought” which we were in at the time here in CA.
Anything? Cropping?
D500, Nikon 200-500 lens, f 8.0, hand held, 1/1000th, 1050mm, ISO 4000.
Ha! This is a nice “inside baseball” kind of shot, meaning something we don’t often get to see, but that goes on and is a normal part of life for the bird. Good ground level view, too - so important with these guys. The light works well to show the dust flying, but I do wish the angle/positioning was a tad lower to get the bird’s head in silhouette against the green. Sometimes not easy or even possible, but maybe worth trying. Also wonder if you had a stab at darkening the bright sticks/roots, that will help keep our eyes on the action. I might also play with adding some texture or clarity to the bird and opening up the exposure on the face, especially the eye. Contrast looks good and dusty so I wouldn’t crank that more. What a lovely encounter you had. I’ve never photographed these guys well so I’m envious!
Hi Dave,
This adds new meaning to “Quail Hollow” for me, we have a golf club nearby called…you guessed it… “Quail Hollow”.
Seriously though, this is a fine image with a really good perspective being low to the ground like that.
Like Kris said, the light worked in your favor in showing off that dust cloud and the hole it’s digging.
I agree with Kris about bringing up the exposure a little more on the head and toning down the stick and root?
I think your crop looks good as is.
f8 with your rig worked well at starting to go OOF at the ridge of the dirt.
Very nice image! 
Hey, thanks. This is what I like: getting helpful suggestions on things and especially things I did not think of. I will play with it and maybe post it if it changes it up for the better, and I’m thinking it will. Side note: his girlfriend was right behind him dusting away too. You just can’t see her for the cloud.
Hi Dave,
I’d like to point out something that might help in regards to notifications.
I basically stumbled onto this new comment by chance, so, if you want to make sure specific people (Like Kris and myself) see this, use the @ symbol and type the first couple of letters of our name, then choose the name you want to notify from the popup list like this: @Kris_Smith
(I just notified Kris Smith BTW).
Of course, using a quote from that person’s reply works as well.
The rework looks great!
The bright spots aren’t as distracting as they were and the exposure on his head looks good, and the exposure bump better defined the plume on his head.
I still like the story of this fellow having a dust bath and digging a hole at the same time, it’s a neat behavior we don’t often see, let alone capture.
Well done!
