Rednecked Phalarope

[Grace Scalzo]

Here's a more traditional composition than the phalarope image that I posted a couple days ago. These are fun, intense little birds to photograph as they spin constantly. Nearly full frame, removed a sensor spot.

1/4000, f 7.1, iso800
Canon 1Dx, 600f4 + 1.4tc + lowered rrs tripod

[nick clayton]

I love the low angle, but not so low that the beautiful reflection cant be seen. Nice light with a good clean background and a superb little bird with a highlight in the eye.

[Henry Domke]

An outstanding portrait that looks technically perfect.

[keith mitchell]

Grace you have been down really low for this, it looks excellent.

Keith.

[Daniel Cadieux]

My kind of low angle...love it! Vivid colours and perfect comp.

[Bill Dix]

Beautiful colors, Grace, and terrific low POV. I photographed this guy in non-breeding plumage a few weeks ago; I'd love to see him looking like this. Given how close you were, you might have wished in retrospect to have stopped down a bit for more DOF, but it's beautifully sharp where it counts.

[Randy Stout]

Grace:

Very nice, great angle, colors. As Bill commented, a bit more DOF would have been nice. You had lots of shutter speed and ISO to trade for it, but often there is no time to change when something great pops up. Shoot first, fiddle second!

Cheers

Randy

[Grace Scalzo]

Thanks, everyone. Bill and Randy, you betcha. I was photographing long tail ducks taking off when this one popped up, right in front of me. I can't say it was a grab shot, but close, as I went right back to the ducks. :)

[Miguel Palaviccini]

Grace,

This is a very clean and sharp image. Not sure I would change a thing.

I'm especially fond of the the motion shown by the ripple just in front of the chest.

Miguel

[Tim King]

WHOA!! That's nice.

[Shawn Zierman]

Loverly! I enjoy the water movement right around the bird, especially that little wake it's pushing. Thanks for the explanation regarding dof, as you usually control it so well...

[gail bisson]

Hi Grace,
Another lovely shot from Nome.
Love the low POV and the bow wave. Excellent IQ and tack sharp.
No one else has mentioned this but I feel this could be rotated a degree CW. Perhaps it is an optical illusion due to the bow wave?
Interesting factoid I read the other day- Did you know that the girls are prettier than the boys in this species?
Gail

[Enrique Patino]

Awesome image Grace. I did some minor tweaking to the jpeg you posted and got some more details out of the highlights and dark areas... do you mind if I post it to compare?

[Doug Brown]

Beautiful bird captured at an impressively low angle. Very good exposure. Like the detail, but would have preferred a bit more DOF (as pointed out above).

[Grace Scalzo]

DOF police- Yes! I hear you. But I'm not going to delete this one as it is sharp where it counts. When I'm photographing two things at once, I get my settings right for my priority species. Not always adept enough to make adjustments on the fly.

Enrique- Please do...I am always open to improvements, just include what you do so I can learn.

Gail- You could be right. I leveled this based on the reflection and on the bird's body, including what I can see through the bow wake, but I considered whether I should rotate this one more by eye than by ruler, one of the reasons why I posted this for critique so that I could see if anyone had ideas. Thanks!

[Enrique Patino]

Hi Grace,

I am not sure exactly how it works yet, but I have no problem trying to explain how I worked this image here.

I read some tutorials on luminosity masks and decided to buy the tutorials and videos... and the order came with all the actions and the panel to run them in PS. Most info on how to use them is for landscape photography, but I am also determined to find the proper use of these for birds and wildlife... and so far I think these will be very useful...

Basically, I used the panel to run something the author calls "triple-play". First choose the light-luminosity-mask (or combination of masks) produced by this action -in a blending mode to darken- (note that the mask has been blurred...is a little confusing how this works for me yet, but soon I will get it). Thene you also choose a light-luminosity-mask (or combination of masks) with a blending to lighten (and thus promoting contrast). But since the darken mask has been blurred, the lighten mask does not recover all the lights...

Then you do the same with darks... first lighten and then dark (for contrast)... sounds confusing, and it is, but it is all done with the push of a few buttons and choosing the right combination by making the layers visible and playing with their opacity if needed...

and you can do all of these with the individual actions separately, w/o using the "triple-play" actions... but you have to know more that what I know now... soon I hope...

hope it helps, but first see if this is an "improvement" over what you had... :t3 and working from a small jpeg is not the same as working with the original file...

enrique

134548

[Grace Scalzo]

Enrique,

Thanks for taking the time to work on this image and to explain what you did. This bird was much more muted than your rework, as I recall it. The "reds" are much more of a brown rust than orange and it was far less contrasty than your repost. But I can see that perhaps these tools could be useful...I need to learn much more about processing, photoshope, etc. Thanks for your efforts !

[Enrique Patino]

you are welcome Grace. And yes, this sort of tools should be used as part of a workflow. That way one can decide if or how these may be useful to fulfill one's artistic needs. Like you, I am learning... and for printing... I think these are very useful...

best,

enrique

[Satish Ranadive]

Gorgeous image with beautiful low angle.

Regards,
Satish.

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Lovely pharalope, the low-shooting angle brings me into the bird´s world.
Nice repost by Enrique, I would say a version between his and yours would make sense in my opinion.

[Frank Schauf]

Beautiful portrait, great details and sharpness.