Sand Partridge

[Wendy Kates]

This image of a sand partridge was made in the Negev desert, in southern Israel. The bird blends in very well with the environment: adaptive for the bird, but perhaps not enough contrast for the image. Let me know what you think. I applied NR, cropped it slightly, and applied Levels to enhance the dark tones.
Canon 7D, 300mm f/4 lens with 1.4 extender
f7.1, 1/400s, ISO 640

[Randall Farhy]

Wendy, this almost seems like a monochromatic image. Not being at all familiar with the geography or the bird-I searched via Google for examples. The search returned a number of examples, but with such variety of tone that I can't figure out what a neutral balance would be for this one. That said-this one seems to carry a heavy orange cast, similar to what a #81 warming filter would apply. I've started tinkering with the image to bring it closer to a neutral balance, but that could be entirely incorrect. Did the original scene consist of very heavy orange tones or are we looking at two different version of the same image? (IE your computer showing you something different from what I'm seeing on mine)

Ignoring the above- given the Shutter speed sharpness is good, but it seems critical focus falls just ahead of the eye. The beak, and elements on the ground appear slightly sharper. Is this lens/extender combo calibrated to the body?

The large OOF pebble in the foreground competec with the head, toning it down or crop/ cloning out would help imho.

edit-Added quick re-work. After reviewing images of the Negev Desert, which does appear rather warm in tone in some regions, I took a blind stab at the color balance which might appear to have a slight green cast. Bumped exposure, adjustments to W/B, HSL channels, shadows, vibrance and saturation, small crop and blending of the foreground rock, local brushwork on the eye and head.

I'm not entirely happy with the repost, time better spent working the RAW file would yield improved results.

[Diane Miller]

Interesting bird, and well captured. Almost-monochromatic images like this are difficult to get right without photographing a truly neutral gray card in the same light, but the OP does strike me as having a strong orange color cast. Are you shooting RAW? What processing? The camera can only make a guess at the color balance/temp, and it can be wrong, especially with a badly matched preset.

[Wendy Kates]

Randall and Diane...thanks for your feedback. Although this is a relatively large bird, it moved constantly, making it difficult to focus on the eye. I did shoot in RAW, and originally did not alter the white balance. Some of the orange tones may have been due to the early morning sun. In addition, altering Levels to increase the darker tones seems to have given the image more of an orange cast.

So, here is the repost in which I reprocessed it in RAW: lowered temperature from 5250 to 5100; increased exposure by +0.25; increased contrast by +20; reduced blacks to -12; increased clarity to +10 and increased vibrance to +5. Then I applied a very slight S curve. In the previous image I had reduced noise, which may have also reduced detail in the eye, so in this repost, I kept the noise level as is (which doesn't seem too bad since I did expose a good deal to the right). Also in the previous image I dodged the eye a bit...I left it alone in this image.

Then I opened the image in .psd, and cropped it...more than in the previous image in order to remove some of the OOF pebbles. Sharpened it about 60% with unsharp mask.

I think this repost is an improvement, but I'm not a very sophisticated Photoshop user, so I would be interested in further suggestions for improving the image.

[Wendy Kates]

I forgot to add that here in Israel I am limited to viewing and editing images on my laptop...I'll be interested in seeing how different the image looks on my monitor back home!

[Wendy Kates]

I may be obsessing but my repost looks less sharp than the image on my monitor, so I resharpened and am reposting again!

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Wendy, overall it's a nice image and being on an incline adds to the composition, I also like the head turn too, all works well.

Your RP is going in the right direction, however I think you could drop the exposure even more based on the Histogram. I might also look to dropping perhaps both Red & Magenta, especially in the whites, but retaining still the nice overall warmth of the tones. I guessing a little as after three weeks away, two days home, I'm again away again, so basing things visually on the laptop not always ideal. Moving the whole crop down so you have a little less above and more below I think would also help, as you get the impression it's lipping off the page. :w3

I see you are based in, just a thought, but PM Rachel Hollander another Wildlife Mod, as she is organising something in the next few weeks in NY and you could find it beneficial. :S3:

Good luck.

Steve

[Diane Miller]

Nice work, Wendy -- you've removed a lot of the color cast -- how much is always a question in warm light. Sounds like you have a good handle on processing. Keep posting! That's how we all learn.

[Iain Barker]

Hi Wendy

You have a really nice image here, I like your composition and the pose of the bird. To me you last post looks less sharp than the one before it for some reason.
Like other have already said the white balance can be a personal choice based on how you remember the scene but I think your repost is an improvement over your OP.

Iain