Cormorant over water

[Barry Ekstrand]

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5D Mark III, 500 mm f4L IS II
Manual mode, ISO 2500, f5.0, 1/1600 sec
PP in LR & PS CC, Neat Image NR


Out with the new 500 II at the end of the day, caught this cormorant after it took off of the water. It was cropped ~50% to eliminate ugly bank vegetation & position bird / reflection. I have shot cormorants before in Av mode and have had difficulty getting a good exposure, typically underexposed, leading to noise issues when I try to recover. This is the first time I used Manual mode on one and it was exposed to the right, I pulled exposure back a bit in PP.

Any and all comments appreciated.

Barry

[Aidan Briggs]

Good job using manual, its always great to keep progressing your skills! I like the full wings down pose here. The soft colors are nice too. I would boost the contrast, the image is flat as a whole. You also should try some CCW rotation as it looks as though the cormorant is flying uphill.

Looking forward to more!

[Daniel Cadieux]

Yep, manual is the way to go with flight photography, especially if the light is constant on the subject. You could not have asked for a better wing position here and I like the fact it is flying so low to the water. Nice BG and FG. Seems a tad dark to me, and you can check the WB for some purplish cast on the feathers - likely a bit much on the magenta side.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Barry, great flight pose with the full downstroke of the wings, and great that he flying low over the water.

Before reading any of the above comments, I too felt the cormorant had a magenta cast. They are normally a blacker shade. Another vote for some CCW rotation too.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Lovely shot excellent timing, I haven't read previous posts so sorry if this is repetitive: I would suggest the colour is a little off - perhaps reddish/magenta cast, I would make the bird and reflection just a tad lower in the frame, also check the horizontal it looks a little out. I would consider a little more sharpening - do you sharpen in LR?

[Barry Ekstrand]

All,

Many thanks for the feedback. I have taken another shot at it, this time doing the Raw conversion in DPP. The 'as shot' WB came out with the same magenta bias so I have adjusted WB a bit to correct for that. I also increased the amount of exposure to -.17 stops from original and gave the cormorant some CCW rotation as recommended. I do all sharpening in PS CC, normally using the Smart Sharpen filter. I may have missed doing a final sharpening last time after resizing, but it has been done this time. Comments on the repost will be appreciated.

Barry

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