Dipper & nesting material

[Jonathan Ashton]

Tripod Canon 7D Canon 500mm f4 L IS & 1.4TC AV mode ISO 500 1/200 sec f5.6.
I had to do quite a lot of work on the background, it was full of ugly irregular shaped highlights and shadows.
All C&C welcome.

[keith mitchell]

Jonathan looks like typical Dipper environment but you have coped with it very well, the bird looks nice and sharp and well exposed, in a perfect world it would be even better without the light oof stone but we don't live in one, you have finished with a very nice image.
Keith.

[douglas hayes]

BEAUTIFUL-you are fortunate to have such a dipper as a subject and the on top of rock pose lends to the image TFS

[Norm Dulak]

Another nice one, Jon. The subject, pose, background, nesting material, color and sharpness are all fine. The light stone in the background doesn't bother me, but I wish that the entire image would be just a little bit brighter.

[gail bisson]

...and the story begins! I hope it ends with lots of babies for us to see!
Great pose. Your work on the BG is good but I do see some cloning artifacts behind the knees.
Easy fix.
The eye looks great and I love the nesting material.
Gail

[Enrique Patino]

almost perfect.. ;)

someday I hope to photograph dippers

[christopher galeski]

nice one Jonathan,and a bonus with nesting material.

[John Robinson]

Nice Dipper shot Jon.
They are certainly active here at the moment with 8 pairs on our stream. Had a problem with a bloke at the weekend sat with a camerastraight in fron of a half built nest. The bird deserted. Some "bird snappers" never cease to amaze me. Ironically she has started to re build in a safer spot.
Been a bit inactive of late due to various problems but up and running again.
Cheers
John

[Steve Kaluski]

Jon, if you add a mid tone Curves adjustment and some more selective USM it will give a bit more depth to the image and more clarity to the subject.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Thanks very much for the comments everyone, much appreciated. I will return the dippers are nesting under the main bridge at a country park so there are people and dogs continually passing by so I do hope my presence does not have a deleterious effect, if is ense it does than you can rest assured I will leave immediately.
Good to see you back John - I wondered where you were.
Steve see repost I have applied a linear curve and I have not touched the background on this one - I thought I could show everyone how tricky the background can be.
Hmm seems to me that maybe I will be tempted to get a 1DX, but it is filling the frame that concerns me!

[Iain Barker]

Nice Image Jon. If you had been disturbing the dipper you wouldn't have an image as close as this as they don't hang about. I think your whites had more detail on your op and I think I preferred your background on that one as well.

TFS
Iain

[Steve Kaluski]

I have not touched the background on this one - I thought I could show everyone how tricky the background can be.

Jon the BKG looks typical to the habitat these birds live in, not much you can do, so you did well on the OP. Unless you do a set-up where you can control things not much you could have done.


Hmm seems to me that maybe I will be tempted to get a 1DX, but it is filling the frame that concerns me!

Rent one and see, if you decide to buy, see if you can off-set the cost, but remember, it's not a camera body you take out of the box and begin to shoot with! maybe not the 1DX what about the 5DMKIII, I see Canon are doing a Cash back deal.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Jon the BKG looks typical to the habitat these birds live in, not much you can do, so you did well on the OP. Unless you do a set-up where you can control things not much you could have done.



Rent one and see, if you decide to buy, see if you can off-set the cost, but remember, it's not a camera body you take out of the box and begin to shoot with! maybe not the 1DX what about the 5DMKIII, I see Canon are doing a Cash back deal.

Steve, 5D Mk111 - I tested it when it first came out. I was very impressed with file quality and handling. I was very unimpressed with AF system, I thought it was going to be the D's B's after all the hype on the website, in practice when photographing SEOs on marshes I found very little difference between it and the 7D. So I felt to shell out another two grand for little AF improvement was not a good idea.

[Daniel Cadieux]

BG less than ideal as you pointed out, but man-o-man the bird and perch are perfect. Looking forward to the progression of the potential family...

[keith mitchell]

Jonathan the bird certainly seems to pop more on the repost but also seems to lift the Bg which is a bit distracting, think I still prefer the original but it all makes good reading .

Keith.

[Karl Egressy]

Yet an other striking image of this beauty, Jon.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Thanks very much everyone, glad you liked it, hopefully more to follow in the forthcoming weeks.