Black Skimmer

[Alex Becker]

Hi all,

I got a number of frames of these black skimmers flying and skimming the surface of the water, but liked this one due to the 'running' pose and the water droplets.


Camera: Nikon D500
Lens: 200-500mm f/5.6 at 500mm
Specs: 1/3200 ISO 560 f/5.6 with EC 2/3

Photoshop: I clipped the top of the wings slightly so I added them and some canvas to the top.
Lightroom: Cropped to about 60% of the FF, tonal adjustments, sharpened, added some exposure onto the eye to try to give some separation from the black head.


Thanks for looking,

[Bill Dix]

Lots of action here, and it really shows how long the Skimmers' wings are. Good job on the wingtip repair. I like the great splash. Something's missing for me; it may be the eye, and perhaps you sensed it when you tried to bring it out of the black head. I wonder if a catchlight would help?

[Daniel Cadieux]

Yep, you did a very good job repairing the wingtip and adding canvas above. The skimmer is still rather tight in the frame though. Seems like you cropped a good portion out, from your description...do you have more canvas below available? I do like the action, with a good splash behind and water drops all around the running pose.

[Alex Becker]

Thank you both for commenting!

Bill, I agree that theres something missing and also think it is the eye -- on the repost I've added some more exposure / white onto the eye, but I'm having trouble adding a catchlight that looks natural. Do you have any tips on that?

Daniel, I do have more canvas below, but unfortunately no more to the right. I'm attaching a repost with looser crop and subsequently the skimmer less centered which gives it more room to 'run into' I think. I still have more room on the bottom, but I feel the image starts to look a bit empty on the left hand side, although of course open to thoughts on the crop.

Thanks both,

[Loi Nguyen]

Hi Alex, the repost looks great. lLoose crop is the way to go I think. I think there is not much details in the black including the head and wings. Did you check the histogram? Loi

[Bill Dix]

Alex, often a manufactured catchlight can look artificial and make things worse instead of better, in which case you're better off without it. I wish I had a magic tip for making it look right. The repost looks better to me.

[Jim Crosswell]

I like the action you captured here Alex. The repost looks is an improvement especially for the eye.

[Arthur Morris]

Great action capture. Hard to add a good catchlight when we can barely see the eye... To me it looks as if the sharpest focus is beyond the bird's head as the wings and the feet look a lot sharper than the face ...

a

ps: where did you make the image?

[Alex Becker]

Bill and Jim, thank you for the comments and glad the repost looks better.

Loi, thank you for your comment -- I'll try to bring out some more detail in the blacks when I'm back (traveling at the moment).


Great action capture. Hard to add a good catchlight when we can barely see the eye... To me it looks as if the sharpest focus is beyond the bird's head as the wings and the feet look a lot sharper than the face ...

a

ps: where did you make the image?

Hi Arthur, thank you -- I enjoy reading your blog! I've played with the eye and I'm not sure how much can be done on that. I will check the RAW file when I'm back on a proper display, but I'm pretty sure at 1:1 the head / eye was the focus point / sharper than the body plane and wings. I will check again though. Also more than happy to ping the RAW file as well in the meantime.

This image was made in Captiva, Florida, and I'll probably post a couple more from the trip as well.

Thank you all again for the comments!